Malta to host Europa Nostra Congress

Malta will have the honour of hosting the Europa Nostra Congress in Malta from May 16 to 21, 2006.

The congress is to be chaired by the president of Europa Nostra, Prince Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark, who will be staying as the guest of the President, Eddie Fenech Adami, at San Anton Palace for the duration. Din l-Art Helwa will be making all the arrangements for the 180 or so delegates who will be attending the congress.

Europa Nostra, formed in 1963, is the pan-European Federation for heritage and represents over 200 cultural heritage organisations active throughout Europe, including Din l-Art Helwa.

A member of Din l-Art Helwa has been represented on the Council of Europa Nostra since 1967. This was formerly Judge Maurice Caruana Curran, who has just been awarded the Europa Nostra Prize for life-time service to cultural heritage. I took over from him just over two years ago.

Europa Nostra is the voice of the vast movement in European civil society dedicated to the field of cultural heritage. It is active in heritage in conjunction with a number of international bodies, in particular the European Union institutions, the Council of Europe and Unesco.

Its specific objectives are to promote, at a European level, high standards of quality in heritage conservation, architecture and urban and rural planning and to advocate balanced and sustainable development of the built and natural environment.

It is responsible for putting cultural heritage and its benefits in the mainstream of European public consciousness and in making heritage a priority for public policies both at the European and the national level. Europa Nostra supports national and international campaigns for the preservation and rescue of Europe's heritage at risk. It encourages exemplary initiatives in favour of the conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage by recognising outstanding built heritage achievements - as it did in 2002 by awarding Din l-Art Helwa a silver medal for its restoration of the Msida Bastion Historic Garden of Rest at Floriana.

Through its various activities and through the influence it can - and does - bring to bear at the top-most levels in Europe, Europa Nostra seeks to highlight the importance of cultural heritage as a building block of our European identity and as a vital contribution to strengthening the sense of European citizenship and a common culture, history and heritage stretching back thousands of years. In this respect, Europa Nostra epitomises all that is best about the European project by reaching out in a practical way to those elements of history, culture and identity that bind the European family of nations together.

Din l-Art Helwa is therefore very proud to find itself, at this juncture of European history when Malta is participating so wholeheartedly in the EU process, presented with the privilege of organising and hosting the Europa Nostra Congress in Malta in 2006.

The congress will bring to Malta some 150 to 200 delegates of Europa Nostra - people of distinction and knowledge in cultural heritage with the potential to be enthused about Malta and the cultural tourism which we are so keen to advertise. A comprehensive and exciting series of visits for the congress is being organised to all our prime historic sites and this is being followed up with a six-day tour of Malta and Gozo for those members of Europa Nostra who choose to stay on afterwards.

Meetings of congress delegates with the President, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Tourism and Culture have been organised.

One day has been set aside for the Europa Nostra Cultural Heritage Forum with the theme Cultural Tourism - Its Benefits And The Need For Controls at which a number of international speakers have been invited to speak.

The Minister of Tourism and Culture, Francis Zammit Dimech, will preside together with Prince Henrik, and the chairman of Heritage Malta has been invited to speak about cultural tourism in Malta.

Mr Scicluna is a council member of Europa Nostra.