I L IANA IVANOVA
MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Ms Heidy Purga
Minister of Culture of Estonia
Dear Minister Purga,
The first edition of the Day of European Authors, organised by the European Commission on
27 March 2023, marked a significant milestone in promoting reading and literature, with
more than 1000 events organised across Europe. The initiative seeks to expose young
people to the richness of European literature and to foster collaboration between education
and culture. This is even more important today as we observe a downward trend in literacy
across Europe.
As Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, I encourage
Ministries of culture and education to actively participate and to promote at national level
the 2024 edition of the Day of European Authors to make it a collective celebration of
reading and literature.
The event this year will take place on 25 March. Schools, bookshops, libraries, and other
organisations are invited to organise reading events on European books in all Creative
Europe programme countries. In addition, the European Commission is organising a tour of
120 European authors, who will visit schools to speak about European literature. Finally,
a conference on the European dimension of reading promotion on 25-26 March in
Belgium will gather representatives of Ministries of Education and Culture and
stakeholders from the education and the book sectors - teachers, authors, publishers,
librarians and booksellers and reading promotion organisations.
I would like to invite you to nominate the relevant department in your Ministry as our
contact point and would be grateful if you kindly inform my services (EAC-DAY-OF-THE-
EUROPEAN-AUTHORS@ec.europa.eu).
Yours sincerely,
Iliana Ivanova
Electronically signed on 22/02/2024 09:14 (UTC+01) in accordance with Article 11 of Commission Decision (EU) 2021/2121