The 2020-2021 Certification Cycle includes the regular 3-year evaluation of three certified “Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe” and the evaluation of 13 candidates to the “Cultural Route of the Council of Europe” certification.

Following a preliminary review of the 16 received application files by the Secretariat of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe (EPA), with the support of the European Institute of Cultural Routes (EICR), 13 candidates were found eligible for evaluation and their applications were carefully reviewed by independent experts based on the criteria established by CM Resolution (2013)67.

Due to the travel restrictions imposed by several countries in 2020 as a reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, experts were exceptionally not required to carry out fact-finding visits along the routes. These field visits were replaced by online interviews with the network managements.

During the months January and February, the Secretariat organised 13 online interviews with representatives of each candidate route under evaluation. The objective of these interviews was to collect supplementary information in relation to the experts’ findings and clarify outstanding questions.

Following the EPA Governing Board Rules of Procedure, the evaluation reports prepared by independent experts and recommendations prepared by the Secretariat were presented to the EPA Bureau in February and will now be circulated with their recommendation to the EPA Governing Board Members before the final decision on certification at the EPA Governing Board Meeting on 28-29 April 2021.