Europa Nostra (Italian for “Our Europe”) is a pan-European Federation for Cultural Heritage, representing citizens’ organisations that work on safeguarding Europe’s cultural and natural heritage. It is the voice of this movement to relevant international bodies, in particular the European Union, the Council of Europe and UNESCO. It has consultative status with UNESCO and is recognised as an NGO partner.
Europa Nostra’s network covers almost 50 countries across Europe and beyond. It is composed of over 250 member organisations (heritage associations and foundations with a combined membership of more than 5 million people), 150 associated organisations (governmental bodies, local authorities and corporations) and also 1500 individual members who directly support the mission of Europa Nostra.
Europa Nostra’s main goal is to place heritage and its benefits in the mainstream of public consciousness and to make heritage a higher priority for public policy both at European and national levels. Its specific objectives are to promote, at a European level, high standards of quality in the fields of heritage conservation, architecture, urban and rural planning and to advocate a balanced and sustainable development of urban and rural, built and natural environment. Europa Nostra also seeks to highlight the importance of cultural heritage as a building block of European identity and as contributing to a strengthening sense of European citizenship.
Its activities are coordinated by an International Secretariat based in The Hague (Netherlands) headed by Europa Nostra’s Secretary General, Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović (Netherlands/Serbia). In several countries, the International Secretariat is assisted in its tasks by country representations. Europa Nostra’s main activities are:
to act as a representative lobby for cultural heritage in Europe
[caption id="attachment_169066" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Rheinsberg Palace on Lake Grienerik/Pelz-cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Rheinsberg Palace lies in the municipality of Rheinsberg, about 100 kilometres (62 mi) northwest of Berlin in the German district of Ostprignitz-Ruppin. The palace on the eastern shore of the Grienericksee is a classic example of the so-called Frederician Rococo architecture style and served as a basis for Sanssouci Palace. The palace rose to literary fame when it was described by Theod...