At a time when the European economy and society face multiple challenges, which have serious repercussions on essential elements of the European identity and create distrust in the project of EU integration itself, cultural heritage may serve as a key factor in achieving goals of economic prosperity, social inclusion and cohesion. Preserving and promoting cultural heritage is directly linked to job creation and growth, through the positive externalities and spill-over effects in areas such as tourism, construction or real estate. To this aim, issues such as overcoming current environmental and social hindrances to the preservation of cultural heritage and tackling the consequences of economic crisis and fiscal austerity on national and international cultural policies acquire a timely importance.

The link between cultural heritage and sustainability, the role of cultural heritage to sustainable and participatory socio-economic development and new trends at policy level in the cultural heritage sector will be discussed in the conference “Heritage First! Towards a Common Approach for a Sustainable Europe”. The conference is organized by the Ministry of Culture and Sports in the framework of the Greek Presidency of the Council of the EU and will take place in the Acropolis Museum of Athens, from 6 to 8 March 2014. The Greek Minister of Culture and Sports, Panos Panagiotopoulos, the Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou and the Secretary General of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, Lina Mendoni will open the event, which will be attended by prominent figures such as the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Greece to UNESCO, Katherina Daskalaki, the President of ICOM, Hans-Martin Hinz and the Executive Vice President of Europa Nostra, John Sell.

The first thematic session focuses on the quality of cultural heritage as a lever of urban development. By contributing to the unique character and identity of a city, cultural heritage may prove to be a competitive advantage which can be capitalized in terms of business expansion, job creation and development of cultural tourism and of local cultural and creative industries. The clear and distinct economic and financial impact of cultural heritage is the subject of the second thematic session of the conference, during which questions related to public and private investment, new business models and partnerships and cultural entrepreneurship will be discussed. Finally, ways of enhancing the role of cultural heritage as a factor of social inclusion, social cohesion and peaceful coexistence will be examined in the third session.