The National cultural heritage code has been put up for public discussion

Minister of Culture, Raluca Turcan, has announced the completion and public discussion of the National Cultural Heritage Code, inviting experts in the field to take this process seriously. Raluca Turcan participated in the closing conference of the project "Historic Monuments - Strategic Planning and Optimized Public Policies," during which the projects for the National Strategy for the Protection of Historic Monuments and the National Cultural Heritage Code were developed. The conference was organized by the Project Management Unit (UMP) within the Ministry of Culture and took place at the National Library of Romania.

According to the minister: "We are on the verge of launching the Cultural Heritage Code for public discussion, a process that I want us to take seriously. The Cultural Heritage Code is not an easy subject. It involves harmonizing all legislation in the cultural domain, harmonizing procedures between local authorities and central authorities, ensuring consistency in the legislative hierarchies applied to the cultural heritage code, and even clarifying the scope of sanctions for violations of the cultural heritage code. When I refer to legislative hierarchy, I mean who has the most appropriate competence to intervene when it comes to heritage-related measures: to avoid overlaps between local authorities and central authorities, to eliminate contradictions between the decisions of one and the other."

The minister emphasized that it was necessary for the document "to be harmonized with the Urban Planning Code": "We don't want to find ourselves in a situation where there is an Urban Planning Code, and then we come up with a Heritage Code that regulates the regime of historical monuments without being correlated with what decision-making involves at the level of construction regulations. Currently, the Urban Planning Code is in Parliament, and the final form is expected to be adopted. I will closely follow the public discussion process to ensure that the final versions are well-correlated."

Referring to the National Strategy for the Protection of Historic Monuments, Raluca Turcan stressed that it is correct to have such a strategy, "especially since we operate within a correlated European legislative framework": "Very often, experts have told me that when accessing European funds, we are often questioned if there is a strategy and if the respective projects fit into the strategy for the protection of historic monuments. I will also pay very close attention to the details related to this strategy, and I believe that among the essential elements it contains are those related to the correlation with future technologies. Indeed, in a strategy, we need to know exactly what heritage elements our country possesses, as well as how advanced technologies can be used in documenting, researching, and innovating in the field of heritage."

Raluca Turcan expressed her conviction that "as a country, we should prioritize the regeneration of the built environment and the reuse of heritage as a measure to combat climate change."

During the event, specialists from the Project Management Unit (UMP) presented the two projects-the National Cultural Heritage Code and the National Strategy for the Protection of Historic Monuments-highlighting their main novelties. According to Ionică Pârvu, a legislative expert within UMP, the new form of the Cultural Heritage Code introduces absolute novelties, such as the Cultural Landscape, which refers to the first legislation in this field with a distinct regime, bridging the natural component and the historic monument, along with all aspects of intangible cultural heritage.