Romania to take part in the Europalia Festival

Romania is already preparing to take part in the 27th edition of the Europalia International Arts Festival in Belgium, where it will be the guest of honour. The event, held every two years, showcases the key elements of a country's cultural heritage. From October 2019 until January 2020, in Brussels and other cities, the Festival will bring to the fore various forms of Romanian art: music, fine arts, theater, cinema, dance, literature, architecture, design, fashion and gastronomy. The memorandum of understanding on the organisation of Europalia Romania, signed on Tuesday in Bucharest, paves the way for this series of events.

According to the national authorities, this is a major opportunity for Romania to promote its cultural heritage, its traditions, creative industries and cultural potential. Here is the Culture Minister Corina Suteu:

"Now, when Europe is so distressed by the general geopolitical context and when we are all trying to redefine our European identity, I believe a project like Europalia, of which Romania, as a candidate country, got the great privilege of being a part, is perhaps the ideal occasion to reaffirm the values in which all Europeans believe, and to reaffirm them through creativity, communication and the type of identity that culture alone can define."

In turn, the Romanian Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu mentioned that, thanks to the diversity and significance of the programme it will promote, Europalia Romania will reinforce, in late 2019, the message of the presidency of the EU Council, which Romania will hold in the first half of the same year. 

Lazar Comanescu:  "This is a cultural event of the highest quality, an exceptional opportunity for any country to introduce itself and to promote itself, to help others understand it better, particularly in the field of culture."

The Europalia International Arts Festival was established nearly 50 years ago to enable the original six member states to know each other better. Currently the biggest cultural event in Belgium, it attracts large numbers of tourists, and is an excellent means to present a country and a culture to the European and international public. Previous guests of honour in this Festival included Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, China, Brazil, India and Turkey. This year the Festival showcases the culture of Indonesia