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Palma discounted from European City of Culture 2016
Palma's bid to become European City of Culture 2016 has been excluded from Spain's short list today because the application did not specify a representative from the municipality of Palma de Mallorca. A City Council representative supporting the bid is required by the Spanish Ministry of Culture, and as the bid from Palma was produced and submitted without Balearic Government or Palma town council support, no such representative was documented.
Palma's bid was put together by German cultural expert, Hubert Feil, who has previous experience in promoting Austrian and German cities as cultural centres. Feil was keen to show that Palma and the Balearic Islands have so much more to offer than the perceived mass tourism image commonly associated with the islands. His goal was to showcase the cultural heritage of the islands and in doing so, bring investment to Palma, and create 4000 jobs in the process.
The move will be seen to be a political one, as neither the Balearic Government nor the town hall of Palma had supported the bid, and it is known that Spanish President Zapatero has already thrown his support behind Cordoba, in Andalucia. The competition will now be between the remaining 15 Spanish cities and 12 from Poland. The Spanish cities short list will be announced on Wednesday, 29th September.
