The EU strategy for international cultural relations sets out to move beyond an understanding of cultural diplomacy as soft power and towards a more inclusive and reciprocal approach built around “a new spirit of dialogue, mutual listening and learning, joint capacity-building and global solidarity”. To be fully effective, this strategy needs to involve all levels of governance, in particular cities. This policy paper aims to demonstrate the potential of European cities for achieving the objectives of the EU strategy for international cultural relations by proposing a revised multilevel approach. By Hannah Abdullah, CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs) and Jeremie Molho, European University Institute & National University of Singapore.
