Székesfehérvár joins the contest for European Capital of Culture

Székesfehérvár’s municipal aim is making the city one of Hungary’s most outstanding innovation center. They also intend to use the European Capital of Culture competition for making Székesfehérvár, the center of the Middle-Transdanubia and Fejér county, a high castle of culture and intellect, as Turizmus.com reports.

At the special assembly on St. Stephen’s Day, the mayor of Székesfehérvár announced that the city applies for the European Capital of Culture 2023 competition. He claimed that most of the local citizens support this idea. András Cser-Palkovics stated that 3700 residents told their opinion during the consultation that was closed on 15 August. 93 percent of the respondents agreed that Székesfehérvár should apply for the competition.

The mayor also stated that the competition serves the purpose of improving the cultural and intellectual life of the city in a way that it may become one of the region’s, if not Hungary’s, greatest innovative cultural center. The municipal assembled a task force of ten experts for preparing the competition material.

In 2023, the title of the European Capital of Culture will be given to one city in Hungary and one in the United Kingdom.

The deadline for the submissions for the competition of 2023 is 20 December. The Ministry of Human Resources and the embodiment of experts in Brussels will check the submitted materials by February 2018. They will decide — along with some other professionals — about the contenders that qualify for the final round of the competition. The cities that make it to the second round will have to submit more detailed plans. It will be announced by the end of 2018 which Hungarian city can bear the title of the European Capital of Culture in 2023.

Besides Székesfehérvár, eight other cities decided to participate so far: Tokaj, Debrecen, Veszprém, Eger, Gödöllő, Győr, Szombathely and Miskolc. The latter one, unfortunately, resigned in the meantime.

ce: ZsK

Source: Turizmus.com