COLLABORATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE PHOENICIANS’ ROUTE AND IRON AGE DANUBE ROUTE

The Phoenicians’ Route and the Iron Age Danube Route, two Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe, signed a Collaboration Agreement aiming at safeguarding and promoting the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Euro-Mediterranean history, in order to launch joint activities and strategies for cultural and tourism enhancement favoring their respective territories.

On 25 January 2022 the two Cultural Routes certified by the Council of Europe “The Phoenicians’ Route” and the “Iron Age Danube Route” signed a relevant collaboration agreement, with the aim of promoting and disseminating the tangible and intangible cultural heritage connected to products, places, traditions, civilizations at the basis of European values.
The agreement aims at promoting opportunities exchanges between these two Cultural Routes that tell millennial stories, stimulating a new co-planning and collaboration in terms of analysis, creation of tourist products between neighboring territories while belonging to different cultural routes, as well as actions to enhance the territory, promotion of sustainable, creative and experiential tourism, both linked to local communities and to a network with a European and international scope.
The Phoenicians’ Route and the Iron Age Danube Route will work together on the development of marketing, study and analysis activities; organization of events, exhibitions, seminars, training activities, meetings involving civil society; promotion of exchanges between young people from their respective countries; collaboration for international projects; organization of joint communication actions, promotional campaigns, promotional tours and more.

The two Routes’ topics perfectly intertwine, since they deal with contemporary historical periods in different geographical areas. Furthermore, both Routes support common transnational approaches to the protection, presentation and research of archaeological landscapes and heritage. The cultures of this historic period (Iron Age in the Danube Region and the Mediterranean area) exchanged goods, ideas, knowledge and technologies, solved conflicts, migrated and interacted with other cultures beyond Europe, becoming part of a bigger European cultural phenomena. The awareness that modern states’ borders and European unity of today have emerged after millennia of interactions between the ancient civilizations is the main message that the Iron Age Danube Route and the Phoenicians’ Route seek to transmit.
For this reason, the two Routes worked on the idea of launching and developing joint initiatives.