EU candidate status allows Ukraine to participate in European Capital of Culture contest

MOSCOW. May 23 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Culture and Information Policy Ministry has said that with obtaining its candidate status for the European Union membership, Ukraine had gained the right to apply for the European Capital of Culture contest in 2030 and 2033.

"The participation in the contest for the European Capital of Culture status provides efficient levers for the development of communities, as this allows actually still at the stage of candidate to attract investors for the development of tourist, transport and hospitality infrastructure in the region. Besides, this status also helps raise investment in the field of culture at the local level," the Ukrainian media quoted Deputy Culture Minister Galina Grigorenko as saying.

The preparations for the European Capital of Culture status requires a lot of work and constant analysis of its strong and weak points both of the country as a whole and of individual regions or cities, she said.

"We are in a constant dialogue on the support of the European partners to share their experiences - how this happened to them, how this was implemented, what the problems were, etc., in order to take this into account in our process. This is why these kinds of training seminars, lectures, roundtables are extremely important. This allows us to talk about what we are doing and how we are doing this, where we are going. We should finally agree on the rules of this game to achieve this and successfully gain the title of the European Capital of Culture in 2030 or 2033," she said.