RIGA- Riga's application to be the European Capital of Culture in 2014 is being prepared by Aiva Rozenberga, former spokesman of ex-president Vaira Vike-Freiberga.
Rozenberga said that in September 2009 a decision will be made to decide which two Latvian and Swedish cities will be European Capitals of Culture in 2014. Currently, the competition is being held among three Latvian cities -- Riga, Cesis and Liepaja and two Swedish cities Lund and Umea.
"I am sure that no matter which city wins the status, for Latvia it is a large opportunity to use culture in the widest sense and recover from the economic crisis. In Latvia it is typical to consider culture in a narrow sense, but in contemporary world the culture has large chances to create added value and help economic processes to create new ways of cooperation," said Rozenberga.
Rozenberga is preparing Riga's application for the competition, and in a couple of weeks Internet website www.kulturix.lv will be opened, inviting residents to share their opinion and inform them about the progress in preparing the application.
The application underscored that culture is creating added value and Riga is a mobile center. "Movement of people's ideas is happening very fast, and there are communications among countries and cities. We are open to other cities in Latvia and beyond its borders to create new cooperation projects," she said.
Rozenberga said that she wants to get a wide range of people, experts, municipal institutions, NGOs involved in the project.
She said that she has received support letters from 15 European cities and Eurocities culture forum cities.
The Riga City Council culture department is the responsible institution for the project.
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