The European Commission’s expert sub-group dedicated to the safeguarding of cultural heritage in Ukraine are meeting at the end of January following their previous meetings in June and September 2023.

The experts started drafting recommendations on the following priority areas:

• risk management
• recognition of cultural heritage
• documentation, monitoring and data collection
• recovery

The meeting will be the occasion for the group to update their draft recommendations and identify additional priority areas for reflection.

Background

In line with the EU Workplan for Culture 2023-2026, the European Commission set up an expert sub-group dedicated to the safeguarding of cultural heritage in Ukraine.

This sub-group reports to the Commission expert group on cultural heritage (CHEG) that was established in 2019 in the aftermath of the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage.

The sub-group is comprised of 26 experts that were selected through an open call, 6 of whom are of Ukrainian nationality. They are tasked to identify good practices and formulate recommendations for possible future EU-funded actions. The sub-group met twice, in June (online) and September (physical) 2023.