European Heritage Label: ¿Which role for local and regional authorities?
Europe is planning to better promote its heritage through a new label which is expected to come into force no later than 2012. The aim of the European Heritage Label is to showcase sites that symbolise European integration. The proposal from the Commission draws on a project launched in 2006 by several countries, without the involvement of the European institutions. Thus, in the new framework, Member States would pre-select sites to be awarded the label by a European panel.
The Committee of the Regions' opinion on the subject is clear: since the financial management of these sites falls mainly to the local and regional authorities, it is incomprehensible that the current Commission proposals foresee no role for them in this process. French MEP Mireille Lacombe, Member of Puy-de-Dôme General Council and rapporteur on the label, stressed this point at the Committee's plenary session in Brussels.
In its opinion, the CoR also regrets that the initiative is only open to EU Member States, whereas the intergovernmental initiative behind the label included Switzerland, and candidate countries can join in the European capital of culture initiative. Mireille Lacombe points out that "as illustrated by the situation in the Balkans, it is important for this label to include all of Europe and to link sites with the history of European integration in compliance with its fundamental values. Why not extend the label to EU neighbouring countries and allow them to manage and protect Europe's cultural heritage?"
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