Tackling climate change is this generation’s defining task. Being a driver of positive change, Europe’s cultural heritage can play an important role in addressing the climate emergency. For this reason, Europa Nostra in partnership with ICOMOS, and with the support of the European Investment Bank Institute, the involvement of the Climate Heritage Network and the input by members European Heritage Alliance, recently launched the European Cultural Heritage Green Paper “Putting Europe’s shared heritage at the heart of the European Green Deal”.

The paper is a timely policy and advocacy document that correlates the contribution of cultural heritage to all main key areas of the European Green Deal. It is also relevant for the New European Bauhaus initiative, launched by the European Commission, of which Europa Nostra is among the proud partners. The paper also proposes a series of concrete recommendations both for policy-makers and for cultural heritage stakeholders. Moreover, the paper identifies potential conflicts, real or perceived, between heritage safeguarding and European Green Deal action, as well as win-win strategies for overcoming these conflicts.

Europa Nostra (The European Voice of Civil Society Committed to Cultural Heritage) and all partners involved in the project are convinced that the European Green Deal needs cultural heritage to succeed, and vice versa: Cultural Heritage is a key actor for Europe’s green recovery. Targeted, coordinated and multi-sectoral civil society actions are fundamental for a wider mobilisation of the heritage community for a better, effective and sustainable change in Europe and beyond.

The lecture was held during the 6th Heritage Forum of Central Europe.

Sneška Quaedvlieg–Mihailović has been working for Europa Nostra for more than 25 years. In 2000, she was appointed as Secretary General. In this capacity, she works closely with EU institutions, the Council of Europe, the UN, UNESCO and other international and European governmental and non–governmental bodies on heritage matters.

Since the creation of the European Heritage Alliance 3.3. in 2011, she acts as the Coordinator of this informal platform of European and international networks active in the wider field of heritage. She has played a prominent role in promoting and implementing the European Year of Cultural Heritage (EYCH), actively contributing to the EYCH Stakeholders Group, and now ensuring the legacy of the Year as part of the European Commission Expert Group on Cultural Heritage. She is a regular speaker at European conferences and meetings on cultural heritage and is author of numerous articles on Europe and cultural heritage (most recently she contributed to the special edition of “Cartaditalia” dedicated to 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage” (2017)). She has also contributed to the preparation of the European Report “Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe” (2015).

Prior to joining Europa Nostra, she worked for EU Institutions in Brussels and then for the European Commission Delegation in Belgrade. In 1991, she was one of the founders and the first Secretary–General of the European Movement in Yugoslavia.