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Ágnes Németh, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
The European Capital of Culture (ECOC) initiative is one of the most flexible programmes funded and co-ordinated by the European Union. The Programme provides guidelines for applicant cities rather than outlines strict criteria for participation, and the EU contributes only with a little (an average of 4-5%) to the total budget of an ECOC event (Garcia-Cox, 2013). In terms of the general role of EU funding, the ex-post evaluation of the three ECOC projects implemented in 2010 claims that the relatively small proportion of EU funding makes the programme “very cost-effective compared to other EU policy instruments” (ECORYS, 2011: ix).
ECOC nominees in general need to fulfil two explicit criteria of the Programme: ‘the European Dimension’ and ‘City and Citizens’ defined in article 4 of Decision 1622/2006/CE. While the former criterion is most often translated into a European level of cultural cooperation and cultural diversity of the event, the latter mainly highlights the importance of the engagement of local (and regional) citizens and the long-term cultural and social development of the urban place and its surroundings. It is a real challenge for the cities to meet this dual expectation by creating an event of European dimension while supporting local social and cultural sustainability (Németh, 2010).
At the same time, one should not forget about the very strong brand of the ECOC programme, which often urges participant cities to make the most of the cultural year, and stake all their resources on one card. Motivation for and implementation of ECOC events are more generally driven by the mere opportunity of funding in the case of new EU member countries, where local municipalities have serious financial problems. As a result, when a one-off opportunity arises, such as this mega-event, these cities suddenly get into a somewhat more privileged situation than the others in terms of national support, too.
As a consequence of the above-mentioned characteristics and criteria, ECOC is a type of event which has a great potential and necessity to generate public interest, to reach and mobilise various segments of the society and to bring to surface diverse constellations of open and invisible power relations. How do these processes of public engagement operate and between what actors on which spatial levels, and how do they create or limit space for inclusion in the governance of ECOC? In order to explain the different governing powers of the European Capital of Culture, two case studies are selected (Pécs 2010 in Hungary and Turku 2011 in Finland) for the analysis of the general and distinctive patterns of governance of the projects.
On the one hand, there is an evident influential force that effects the implementation of ECOC events: the institutional frameworks on different scales and spatial levels. The deployment of the Programme is managed by the European Commission, while national governments