The aim of the European Year of Cultural Heritage (2018) is to raise awareness of European history and values and to reinforce an open sense of identity. This includes any form of living memory, whether it refers to monuments, cultural sites, traditions, museum collections, libraries and archives or languages. Fundamentally, we are dealing with knowledge or expressions of human creativity... To take care of what has been handed to us is to give it due attention and not to let it fall into decay. The valuable cultural heritage that we are required to protect must not be forgotten.
How can we preserve what is new if we do not take care of what has been there forever? These values and identities are realities open to encounters with others – from the transition to the digital age to environmental and physical pressures, not to mention the prevention and combat of illicit tra cking in cultural goods. Hence the need to promote cultural diversity, dialogue between cultures and social cohesion, to emphasise the economic contribution that cultural heritage makes in the creative and development sectors and the role of cultural heritage in international relations, from the prevention of con ict to reconciliation between communities.
The Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society, signed in Faro on 27 October 2005, is fundamentally concerned with creating a dynamic understanding of the notion of common cultural heritage and with building a concept of shared responsibility for built and material heritage, intangible heritage and contemporary creations. Cultural heritage refers not only to the past, but also to the permanence of common values, the safeguarding of di erences and respect for what belongs to us, what belongs to others, and the heritage we hold in common. How can we understand Europe without a dialogue between tradition and progress, without understanding our roots and the complementarity between Jews, Christians and Muslims? After all, the most valuable things are priceless.
The decision of the European Union to dedicate 2018 to Cultural Heritage takes on special signi cance at a time of so many uncertainties and threats to the European project of peace, hospitality, mutual aid, sustainable development and the defence of cultural diversity. It is the understanding of cultural heritage that allows us to assume civilised citizenship. This is why this European Year of Cultural Heritage can and should be a challenge for all Europeans to mobilise in defence of both what is ours and what we hold in common. Memories of war, especially those of the past century, compel us to understand that a European culture of peace can only endure if the economic dimension aligns with cultural and political expression, allowing us to nd cohesion, justice and equity between generations and give due primacy to learning. At stake is free and responsible citizenship, shared sovereignty, the union of free and sovereign states, supranational democracy, proximity and development in the pursuit of human dignity.
