Timișoara (Romania), Elefsina (Greece) and Novi Sad (Serbia, candidate country) are the European Capitals of Culture 2021. The European Capitals of Culture initiative is designed to highlight the richness and diversity of cultures in Europe, celebrate the  cultural features Europeans share, increase European citizens' sense of belonging to a common cultural area, foster the contribution of ...

culture to the development of cities. In addition to this, experience has shown that the event is an excellent opportunity for regenerating cities, raising the international profile of cities, enhancing the image of cities in the eyes of their own inhabitants, breathing new life into a city's culture, boosting tourism.

European  Capitals  of  Culture,  according  to  latterday  legend, were born at Athens airport in January 1985, a day of high winds and delayed flights. Sitting in the lounge waiting for their planes were glamorous former actress Melina Mercouri, then Greece’s Minister of Culture, and her French counterpart, the charismatic Jack Lang.

They  were  fresh  from  a  meeting  of  Europe’s  culture  ministers, and said it was a shame  that there were so few occasions  of  this  kind.  They  talked  about  this  and  that  and  as they  killed  time  in  lively  conversation,  Mercouri  came  up with  the  idea  of  launching  a  series  of  yearly  events  that would put the spotlight on cities around Europe and their role  in  the  development  of  European  cultures.  Lang  was keen and so the European Capitals of Culture initiative was launched.

Timișoara nicknamed the Little Vienna or the City of Flowers, is the capital city of Timiș County, the third-largest city in Romania and the main social, economic and cultural centre in western Romania. It is considered the informal capital city of the historical Banat. It offers excellent academic institutions, attracting thousands of international students annually, mainly at its medical school.

Timișoara was the first city in the Habsburg Monarchy with street lighting (1760) and the first European city to be lit by electric street lamps in 1884. It opened the first public lending library with a reading room in the Habsburg Empire and built a municipal hospital 24 years before Vienna. It has been an important centre for music in Europe since the 19th century. The Romanian Revolution began in Timișoara.

Elefsina (Eleusis) is situated about 18 kilometres (11 miles) northwest from the centre of Athens and is part of its metropolitan area. It is located in the Thriasian Plain, at the northernmost end of the Saronic Gulf. It is the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the birthplace of Aeschylus. Today, Eleusis is a major industrial centre, with the largest oil refinery in Greece as well as the home of the Aeschylia Festival, the longest-lived arts event in the Attica Region.

Novi Sad is the second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pannonian Plain on the border of the Bačka and Srem geographical regions. Lying on the banks of the Danube river, the city faces the northern slopes of Fruška Gora.

Novi Sad has a population of 250,000. It was founded in 1694 when Serb merchants formed a colony across the Danube from the Petrovaradin Fortress, a strategic Habsburg military post. In the following centuries, it transformed into an important trading and manufacturing centre as well as a centre of Serbian culture, earning it the nickname Serbian Athens.[5][6] The city was heavily devastated in the 1848 Revolution, but was subsequently rebuilt and restored. Today, along with the Serbian capital city of Belgrade, Novi Sad is an industrial and financial centre important to the Serbian economy.

European Capitals of Culture have already been designated for the next few years: 2022 - Kaunas (Lithuania) and Esch (Luxembourg); 2023 - Veszprém (Ungheria); 2024 - Tartu (Estonia), Bodø (Norvegia, paese EFTA/SEE) e Bad Ischl (Austria). (Carlo Pozzoli)