Palma Town Hall has known for some weeks that the city had failed to make the final shortlist to be Spain's European Capital of Culture in 2031, and it is now clear why the bid was a failure.
The European Commission's evaluation committee has published its report. This is critical of a Palma bid for which the cultural and artistic programme was "highly underdeveloped". "It was more of a methodology based on tourism than an artistic concept and a year-long cultural programme created specifically for the title."
The report assessed its strengths and weaknesses. Positive elements included the "transformative project" in the area of the GESA Building that includes arts and cultural elements. However, "the relationship between the overall strategic framework and the listed European Capital of Culture projects was not clearly defined".
The project's long-term vision, which aims to change the tourism model through culture and art, "is ambitious" but there is a "lack of specific objectives beyond 2031".
The entire application focused on "methodology rather than projects". There was "very limited information, from which it was not possible to evaluate the artistic dimension and quality of the programme, nor assess the artistic variety or cultural forms." The report criticises the lack of concrete examples and describes the programme as "highly underdeveloped and artistically insufficient".
The committee has also questioned the budget. This was 48.5 million euros, but it was backed up with little information and without detail.