Latvia’s Liepaja picked as European Capital of Culture 2027

The city where wind is born – Liepaja – is picked as European Capital of Culture 2027!
This means Liepaja will have the honour of representing Latvia in the context of European culture in 2027.
An event was held at Latvia’s National Library and the winner was announced. Latvia’s Minister of Culture Nauris Puntulis said: «This is truly a great moment!»
The Ministry of Culture notes that applications in the final stage of the contest were evaluated in accordance with the following criteria: investment into long-term strategy, European dimension, cultural and art content, implementation capability, society’s involvement and management.
As previously reported, nine Latvian cities competed for the title of European Capital of Culture 2027: Cesis, Daugavpils, Jelgava, Jekabpils, Jurmala, Kuldiga, Liepaja, Ogre and Valmiera.
After three days of online presentation, in July 2021 an international and independent group of experts picked Daugavpils, Jurmala, Liepaja and Valmiera to remain in the contest. Jurmala later withdrew its candidacy, however.
This is the second time when one of Latvia’s cities earns the status of European Capital of Culture. In 2008 Riga, Cesis, Jurmala and Liepaja were candidates for the status of such a capital in 2014. Riga, Liepaja and Cesis were picked for the second stage then. Two cities got the honour of being European Capital of Culture 2014 – Latvia’s Riga and Sweden’s Umeå.