We visited both cities to see how the programme works: who pays for it, what it means for local communities, and what's left once the spotlight moves on.
First things first: what is the European Capital of Culture?
The initiative under EU oversight dates back to efforts by former Greek culture minister Melina Mercouri and her French counterpart Jack Lang (who is also behind the Fête de la Musique) to bring Europeans closer together by celebrating the continent's shared cultural diversity.
In 1985, the EU designated Athens as the first European Capital of Culture, followed by established cultural centres such as Florence, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Paris.
Over time, the programme evolved from a way of celebrating Europe's best-known cultural capitals to becoming a tool for urban regeneration, and giving cities with untapped cultural potential an opportunity to reinvent themselves and attract long-term investment.
Each city takes its own approach, but it usually comes down to cultural programming built around the city's identity alongside upgrades to public spaces and infrastructure.
Step 1: Get the title, secure the funding
Becoming an ECoC takes around six years and two rounds of applications. Every year, the EU picks two cities from EU member states, while every third year a city from an eligible non-EU country or candidate country joins.
To apply, cities first have to explain why they are the right city for the title and what they hope to achieve with it. They then have to convince an independent panel that they have the strategy, resources, and political support to deliver on their plans.
The budget for an ECoC varies widely. Some of the largest budgets were recorded in Marseille (France) and Košice (Slovakia) in 2013 and Leeuwarden (the Netherlands) in 2018, each investing around €100 million, while Paphos (Cyprus) in 2017 spent just €8.2 million. This year, Trenčín is working with around €25 million, Oulu with €50 million.
Most of the funding comes from national governments, municipalities, regional authorities, and private sponsors. Despite being an EU initiative, direct funding from Brussels is relatively modest. Each city is eligible for the €1.5 million Melina Mercouri Prize, but only after passing a series of monitoring and evaluation stages before the title year even starts.
So while the EU sets the framework and standards, the programme is ultimately financed overwhelmingly through national and local sources.
Step 2: Do culture
On the ground, a typical ECoC year includes around 1,000-1,200 cultural activities (normally 50% higher than a non-ECoC year), according to an analysis conducted in 2023 by the European Commission.
This year, some of the events in Trenčín are a contemporary art exhibition inside a medieval castle, an antifascist football tournament on the banks of the Váh river, and a few hundred metres downstream, the “Splanekor”, a flotilla of handmade, unconventional boats following a tradition now revived by the ECoC programme.
The river Váh also inspired a mural by Portuguese-American artist Rigo 23, commissioned for this year’s ECoC, which reads “the river is sacred because of itself.” The artist sees ECoC as “a great opportunity to decentralise capitals of culture which are normally known as Paris or Berlin and allow any member of the European family to represent the culture of the European project.”
In Oulu, the focus is on grassroots development at community level: schools, neighbourhood groups, youth organisations, and local associations form the backbone of the programme. Most of the over 800 projects are community-led rather than produced by professional arts institutions. The programme offers visitors experiences from a music festival on the frozen sea to a summer evening spent dining outside at a kilometre-long dinner table.
Step 3: Feel the effects
At the Splanekor event in Trenčín, The European Correspondent asked people what changes they've seen in their city. Most pointed to renovated public spaces actually being used, and events spread across neighbourhoods rather than just in the city centre. The city focused on so-called “place-making” in individual neighbourhoods during the planning phase.
A hotel owner told TEC that international visitors often assume Trenčín didn’t have much culture to speak of before ECoC. She sees the programme as a way to connect and scale up existing initiatives.
In Oulu, artist and pedagogue Julian Owusu has concerns about the programme’s local relevance. He sees tensions between artists and people who don’t think investing money in culture makes sense, noting that his own film crews encountered local resistance. “We had people walk past our cameras in protest, saying ‘this is my city,' feeling that Oulu 2026 isn't primarily for locals, but prioritises visitors.”
Owusu warns that ECoC risks reproducing the exclusions it aims to fix: cultural consumers are served an abundance of events, while marginalised groups watch their everyday spaces get repurposed for the programme. Owusu also fears a structural vacuum once the flow of money stops.
Step 4: Prepare for what's next
The full impact of the ECoC programme in Oulu and Trenčín will develop in the coming years, though early figures already point to higher visitor numbers and more overnight stays.
For Stanislav Krajči, director of the Trenčín 2026 project, the most important impact would be improved social cohesion and trust between communities. He believes both are missing not only in his city, but across Slovakia, and contribute to people leaving the country.
That legacy is also on the mind of deputy mayor Patrik Žák.
“Some people say the ECoC is like an alien ship that lands and then disappears,” he told TEC. “We don't want that to happen.” While funding will inevitably decline after 2026, he argues that many projects developed over the past few years have already proved sustainable.
In Oulu, Risto Ruohonen, the chairman of the board at the Oulu Culture Foundation, says the goal is to help build long-term expertise by giving local artists and cultural producers opportunities to work on international-scale projects. He also believes that exposing residents to high-quality cultural events creates lasting demand beyond the title year.
Both countries can also draw on previous experience. Slovakia last hosted an ECoC in Košice in 2013.
“We've already learned important lessons from Košice,” said Katarína Rozvadská, head of the monitoring department behind the project's impact research. “But it takes time for some real change to occur – to see the impact on the economic level, that the city retains attention and attracts some larger investments, as we saw in Košice.”
Does the programme work?
Measuring the ECoC's impact is difficult. While the title almost always raises a city's profile during its designated year, its long-term effects vary considerably.
The clearest measurable impact is on tourism. The European Commission's evaluation of the programme up to 2023 found host cities recorded an average increase of 30-40% in visitor numbers during their title year, though whether tourists continue to come afterwards is far less certain.
“Cities that have been ECoCs have continued to be referenced in the media as such for many years after they have held the title,” noted Steve Green, a former member of the European Commission's selection panel, in 2023.
Researchers are more cautious about the programme's broader economic effects. Much depends on local political commitment, continued investment after the title year, and whether residents embrace the projects.
The classic success story is Glasgow, having held the title in 1990. The city used the programme to transform former industrial spaces into cultural venues and reshape its international image. Research on media and discourse surrounding the city in the years following its title suggests that the ECoC programme's greatest legacy was not economic, but a lasting change in how both residents and outsiders perceived the city.
What could improve?
One recurring criticism is that the programme's European dimension is too weak. Ruohonen in Oulu argues that the programme would benefit from more EU resources, especially dedicated to cross-border integration and collaboration. Too many international partnerships rely on informal personal networks and disappear once the title year ends, he says.
Franco Bianchini, one of the leading experts on ECoC, agrees the project needs a stronger European dimension. He argues in an interview that future editions should encourage deeper cooperation between host cities around shared cultural themes.
Communication is another weak point. Despite being one of the EU's flagship cultural initiatives, relatively few Europeans know which cities hold the title each year, according to the EU's own evaluation. Bianchini argues the EU should provide greater financial and political support for communication.
Steve Green advocates for clearer, measurable objectives, such as targets for neighbourhood participation or reducing carbon emissions.
Jenni Pekkarinen, a PhD researcher in cultural policy at the University of Jyväskylä, points out that the current criteria for the ECoC make no mention of ecological sustainability. She warns that the title risks reinforcing growth-oriented tourism and economic expansion at an environmental cost. Measuring success through economic metrics such as increases in overnight stays can narrow the perceived value of culture, she told TEC.
Cover image depicts the Frozen People Festival staged on the frozen sea at Nallikari Beach in Oulu, Finland