Will the Pearl of the Adriatic become Europe’s City of Culture?
Deputy Mayor of Dubrovnik Tatjana Šimac Bonačić and Head of the City Department of Culture and Heritage Ana Hilje presented the report on the candidacy of the city of Dubrovnik for the European Capital of Culture in 2020, as well as the Action Plan for the Implementation of the Strategy for Culture Development 2016-2018, reports Slobodna Dalmacija on December 16, 2015.
“This action plan which will be presented at the next session of the City Council is yet another confirmation of our efforts to develop the cultural strategy of the city of Dubrovnik. It should be noted that the City allocates substantial funds for culture every year. The four objectives of our strategy are: sustainable management of cultural policy, creating contemporary cultural production, audience development, and planning and implementation of cultural policies. The strategy has been developed in order to satisfy the needs of the cultural sector. It is comprehensive, with an emphasis on education and human resources development, so that Dubrovnik could become the centre of cultural creative processes”, Štimac Bonačić said.
Hilje spoke about the report concerning the candidacy of Dubrovnik for the European Capital of Culture in 2020. “In addition to Dubrovnik, there are three more Croatian cities which have qualified for the second round of competition: Rijeka, Osijek and Pula. The final decision will be known by the end of March, and the deadline for the second draft of our candidacy is 10 February. The committee which is made up of ten European and two independent national members has sent us instructions to strengthen the ‘European dimension’ of our proposal.”
“There, we need to be familiar with the cultural diversity of Europe and to strengthen links with other European cultural stakeholders. We have 20 program units and about 20 projects, and our activities will continue even after the submission of our candidacy. So far, we have strengthened the communication with the citizens, and we have partnerships with the University of Dubrovnik and the Rochester Institute of Technology located in Dubrovnik. We want to involve all our residents in this project. For example, we will try to turn the Gučetić-Lazarević mansion in Rijeka Dubrovačka into a real community centre”, Hilje said.
