A total of five cities were shortlisted for the European Youth Capital (EYC) 2020 title, including Timisoara, a city in Western Romania.

The other four cities are Amiens in France, Chisinau in Moldova, Klaipeda in Lithuania, and Villach in Austria.

Next, all five cities have two months to submit an extensive programme of youth-related cultural, social and political events and activities, and outline a partnership between the municipality and the city’s young people to create, plan, and run the European Youth Capital year.

In the next round of the competition, the cities’ updated applications will be assessed by a high-level jury and a focus group of young people with experience in the EYCs, according to information on Europeanyouthcapital.org. The winner of the EYC 2020 title will be announced at the European Youth Forum’s Council of Members in Cascais (EYC 2018) in November.

The European Youth Forum awards the European Youth Capital title to a European municipality for a period of one year, during which the city has the chance to showcase its youth-related cultural, social, political and economic life and development. Bulgaria’s Varna is the European Youth Capital 2017 while Cascais in Portugal will take over the title in 2018.

Romania’s Cluj-Napoca was the European Youth Capital in 2015.

In mid-September last year, Timisoara was selected to be Romania’s European Capital of Culture 2021.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Wikipedia)