(Re)Programming Europe: European Capitals of Culture: rethinking the role of culture

Abstract

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) programme in 2010 as a success story for the cities and member states involved, the European Commission also registered a ‘lack of Europe’ in the programme. This is reflected in the scholarly literature, which has largely focused on the title’s effects on individual cities rather than on its effects on Europe. The starting-point of this article is the demand of the European Commission for a stricter implementation of new guidelines developed since 2006 for enhancing the European dimension. After situating the history of the event and its idea of ‘unity in diversity’ within the wider context of thoughts on Europe as an ‘imagined community’, this article investigates how Europe is presented in earlier and more recent ECoC bidbooks and programmes. We argue that an observed slight shift in the programme’s content, from a competition-based marketing of local identity towards a more universal value discourse, could be read as a first step towards (re)formulating the European dimension. We suggest that this emerging value paradigm also illustrates how such cultural programmes as a kind of laboratory could contribute to a conceptual reflection on (and beyond) Europe.