Romania to host 5th Ministerial Conference on Cultural Heritage in SEE

The 2008 edition of the Ministerial Conference on Cultural Heritage in SEE will take place in Bucharest on 20 September, organised by the Romanian Ministry for Culture and Religious Affairs with the support of UNESCO

The Romanian Ministry for Culture and Religious Affairs issued official invitations for the 2008 Ministerial Conference on Cultural Heritage in South-Eastern Europe. The event, organised with the support of the Culture Section of UNESCO Office in Venice (Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe - BRESCE), will be convened in Bucharest, on September the 20th.

After five years of activities, the regional cooperation framework launched by the first Ministerial conference (Mostar 2004) has reached a turning point. The good results so far achieved, along with the potentialities still untapped call for a thorough assessment of the whole process, in order to steer it towards new and more ambitious goals. This is the objective underlying this year's meeting, which will convene the ministers responsible for culture of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Italy, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia.

The conference will also be inspired by the proclamation of 2008 as European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, as a further recognition of the crucial role played by culture and cultural heritage in fostering mutual understanding, peaceful coexistence, and sustainable development.