Press Releases

It is with great pleasure that I am here today to address the 5th Anniversary Conference on the Europa Nostra programme «7 Most Endangered Heritage Monuments and Sites», organised within the framework of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018.

Special thanks to the Vice President of Europa Nostra, Mrs Androulla Vassiliou, for her invitation to attend and address the opening ceremony of this conference, as well as to the Centre of Visual Arts and Research and, in particular, to Mrs Rita Severis, for hosting the conference. A warm welcome as well, to all participants coming from abroad.

Endangered heritage is, unfortunately, a topic discussed very often in our days. Cultural heritage faces dangers, due to neglect, development pressures and lack of expertise or resources but also, due to deliberate destruction, in attempts to eradicate collective memory and cultural identity, as witnessed recently on a massive scale, in the Middle East.

Cultural heritage is identified as a legacy of physical artefacts and intangible attributes of a society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. This, requires an active effort on our part in order to safeguard it.

In this context, the establishment of the ‘’The 7 Most Endangered’’ programme, which was launched in 2013, by Europa Nostra is of vital importance, since it does not only identify cultural heritage in danger, may this be monuments, sites or landscapes but it provides also concrete action plans. Plans that include the undertaking of rescue missions by experts to these sites, in an attempt to provide a viable future for them. These are the sort of concrete actions and initiatives that cultural heritage needs. The fact that this is a list that is renewed every two years, provides the opportunity for more cultural sites to benefit from expertise and assistance.

In 2014, the “Buffer Zone of the Historic Centre of Nicosia” was, rightly, included on this list. I was very glad to see that an entire session of the conference is dedicated to the discussion of this issue, on a bi-communal level, sharing experiences, opinions and perhaps initiatives that should be undertaken on this site of our common heritage. The buffer zone is admittedly an area that has been confronted with many challenges. This is an entire section of the old town of Nicosia that has been literally turned into a ghost town. Houses, stores and workshops, once full of life and activity, lie silent and abandoned in the fate of time and the elements of nature. The structures are crumbling and heritage is at a loss. It is my hope that concrete actions will be discussed and results will be pursued.      

In conclusion, I would like to welcome you all and to express the support of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works to the work and activities of Europa Nostra.  I wish you all, a fruitful and productive conference.

( DC )