Procedure for the designation

of one city as European Capital of Culture and the award of the Melina Mercouri prize

Source: official text of the European Commission

a. The panel of experts
A panel of independent experts ("the panel") shall be established to carry out the selection and monitoring procedures.

The role of the panel is to assess the applications received from candidate cities, agree on a list of pre-selected cities as well as recommend one city for being awarded with the title of European Capital of Culture and the Melina Mercouri prize. At the end of the monitoring phase5, it is also the role of the panel to issue a report which will be the basis for the Commission's decision to pay or not the Melina Mercury prize to the city.

The panel will consist of [XX] members.

For the purpose of the pre-selection and selection stages, ten members will be experts appointed by the European institutions and bodies (European Parliament, Council, Commission and Committee of the Regions) and [XX - please indicate here the number (up to 2) of experts your country will appoint] members will be experts appointed by the [Ministry of Culture] in accordance with the relevant national procedures and in consultation with the European Commission.

The same experts shall be appointed by the authorising officer of the Commission so as to give a recommendation about the award of the Melina Mercouri prize.

In accordance with Article 6 of Decision No 445/2014/EC, the experts shall be citizens of the Union, shall be independent, have no actual or potential conflict of interest in respect of a specific candidate city and have substantial experience and expertise in the cultural sector, in the cultural development of cities or in the organisation of a European Capital of Culture or an international cultural event of similar scope and scale.

b. Phases of the procedure
The procedure for designating one city as European Capital of Culture can be broken down as follows:

b.1 The selection phase:

The selection phase is made of two different stages:

- Pre-selection stage

The [Ministry of Culture] will organise a pre-selection meeting [on a date that will be specified later on the Ministry's website / on ……. at …….. (at least five years before the year of the title] inviting all candidate cities which have submitted an application in response to this call in the deadline set below, to send a delegation for a hearing with the panel.

The panel shall assess each candidate city on the basis of its application and hearing against the objectives of the European Capital of Culture action and the criteria as specified above.
After this meeting, the panel will agree on a shortlist of candidate cities which shall be invited to revise and complete their application during the final selection stage. It shall issue a pre-selection report containing a general assessment of all the applications, the short-list of candidate cities which are to be considered further as well as recommendations to these cities.

[MS x] shall then formally approve the short-list based on the report of the panel and the [Ministry of Culture] shall send a letter to short-listed candidate cities inviting them to complete and revise their applications and indicating the deadline for submitting such applications.

- Final selection stage

The short-listed candidate cities will complete and revise their applications with a view to complying with the award criteria as well as taking into account the recommendations contained in the pre-selection report. Each pre-selected city will send its revised application to the [Ministry of Culture] in due time.

At this stage, the panel may wish to pay a visit to the pre-selected cities to get in situ a better understanding of the candidacies as well as the level of ownership among the city's inhabitants and key stakeholders.

In any case, the [Ministry of Culture] will organise a selection meeting [on a date to be specified later on the Ministry's website/ on ……. at …….. (preferably no later than nine months after the pre-selection meeting)] inviting all short-listed cities to send a delegation for a hearing with the panel.

The panel shall assess each short-listed candidate city on the basis of its revised application and hearing against the objectives of the European Capital of Culture action and the criteria as specified above.

After this meeting, the panel shall agree on the recommendation of a maximum of one city for the title. If none of the candidate cities fulfil all the criteria, the panel may recommend not to award the title in [MS x] in [yyyy].

The panel shall issue a selection report containing a general assessment of all the applications and a justified recommendation for the designation of one city for the title. The report shall also contain recommendations to the city concerned regarding the progress to be made by the year of the title.

b.2 The designation of the city as European Capital of Culture and the award of the Melina Mercouri prize

On the basis of the recommendation of the panel, [MS x] shall designate one city to hold the title for the [yyyy] European Capital of Culture and shall notify the European Parliament, the Council, the Commission and the Committee of the Regions of that designation no later than four years before the title-year.

At the same time it recommends a city for the title, the panel will also recommend the authorising officer of the Commission to award the Melina Mercouri prize to this city.
Once the city has been officially designated, the authorising officer of Commission, upon this recommendation, may award it the Melina Mercouri prize which amounts to € 1.500.0006.

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Procedure for the designation