Fears grow 2020 will not meet criteria for €1.5m EU fund

GALWAY 2020 could struggle to meet all five criteria set by the European Commission before it is eligible to draw down €1.5 million in European Capital of Culture prize money.

The European Commission has confirmed that a third formal monitoring meeting with Galway 2020 will take place this Autumn.

At that stage, the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) panel of experts will decide whether to recommend awarding the Melina Mercouri Prize to Galway or not.

If the European Commission accepts the Panel’s recommendation, the actual payment of the award will be made in the first few months of the ECOC year 2020. The prize is a fixed amount of €1.5 million.

In a statement to Galway City Tribune, the European Commission set out the criteria that will be checked by the panel at the monitoring meeting.

Number one on the list is that “there has been no substantial change in the vision, objectives, strategy, programme and budget since the bid book”.

The project as originally envisaged had a budget of €47 million, but that has since been revised downwards to €39 million.

So far, Galway 2020 has just €23 million ‘in the bank’, and unless it rapidly sources additional money, it could struggle to meet the ‘no substantial change in budget’ criterion to be eligible for the prize.

Four other standards must also be met before the European Commission money is paid.

They include: That the independence of the artistic team has been appropriately respected; that the European dimension has remained sufficiently strong in the programme; that the marketing and communication of the ECOC give due prominence to the ECOC as a European Union action; and that monitoring is taking place and arrangements for the final evaluation are in place.

“It is also important that adequate arrangements are made for the transition from the ECOC team to the legacy management,” a European Commission spokesperson said.

He confirmed that since the last formal monitoring meeting with Galway 2020 and the panel of experts, and the subsequent publication of a report last July, an extra meeting between Galway 2020 and the experts was held last November.

The November meeting wasn’t one of the three formal monitoring meetings of the ECOC monitoring process, so it was not followed by a report.

Asked how that monitoring meeting went, the spokesperson added: “There have been fruitful exchanges between the Panel and the City but nothing to report at this stage.”

Galway 2020, the company tasked to deliver the year-long designation, has been beset with problems since Galway won the honour of hosting the European Capital of Culture. These involve issues with funding, governance, staffing, communication and a lack of engagement with groups involved in the bid book.

The July monitoring report highlighted how Galway 2020 risked “losing track with the project” and risked “incurring further delays” if it failed to solve a number of problems highlighted by the European Commission.

Among the problems identified were budget concerns, delays in implementing certain aspects of the project, communication problems, and staffing issues.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland on Wednesday, Chair of the Board of Galway 2020, Arthur Lappin, said the bid book budget of €47 million was “obviously aspirational”. He conceded the event has been “scaled back a little bit”, but its budget would still be about €40 million. The “extraordinary valuable legacy” the event will leave, Mr Lappin said, is “beyond what people can appreciate”.