INTRODUCTION BY THE EXECUTIVE PRESIDENT AND THE SECRETARY GENERAL
At the beginning of 2020, and as a direct reaction to the pandemic, we carried out a consultation among our members and partners on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on cultural heritage sites and stakeholders. The long-term objective of this consultation was to use the collected information as a basis for our advocacy work and to ensure that cultural heritage is duly included in Europe’s immediate response to the Covid-19 crisis as well as in the long-term recovery plans at European and national levels. We were also particularly proud to start, in 2020, a new phase of the 7 Most Endangered Programme which was launched in 2013 in partnership with the European Investment Bank Institute (EIBI). The 7 Most Endangered Programme now allows us to run the programme on an annual basis with the 2021 list of 7 Most Endangered sites published on 8 April. Throughout the course of the year, we organised a series of important events such as the Europe Day Webinar on 9 May, co-hosted by Europa Nostra and the Europeana Foundation, where we launched the European Heritage Alliance Manifesto “Cultural Heritage: a powerful catalyst for the future of Europe”. Furthermore, for the first time ever, the European Heritage Awards Ceremony took place 6 | Annual Report | 2020 | Rapport annuel
© SPK / Herlinde Koelbl
Over the past year, the Covid-19 pandemic has taken a considerable toll on all aspects of our living and working environments, and considerably affected the worlds of culture and cultural heritage. While we are slowly emerging from the pandemic, at the time of writing, we continue to feel the uncertainty and huge impact of this global crisis. Faced with these unprecedented circumstances, Europa Nostra has managed not only to consolidate its core objectives to reach out to our members, stakeholders and the public at large by expanding on our digital possibilities, but also to fully grasp the new opportunities to better position cultural heritage among the key priorities and challenges facing Europe and the world. These efforts have been met by ever closer relations with the European institutions and international organisations committed to the preservation of cultural heritage throughout the world.
Hermann Parzinger
online on 10 November in the presence of Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture and Education. In addition to the 21 Award winners and the three Grand Prix winners, we were also proud to announce the two recipients of the first edition of the ILUCIDARE Special Prizes. 2020 also marked the first stages of a major cooperation with ICOMOS, the Climate Heritage Network, the European Investment Bank and a number of members of the European Heritage Alliance, leading to the publication, on 22 March 2021, of the European Cultural Heritage Green Paper entitled “Putting Europe’s shared heritage at the heart of the European Green Deal”. This pioneering paper demonstrates the relevance of cultural heritage and more generally
