Emil StoyanovMember of the European Parliament

Bulgaria has increased more than 9 times its content in the Digital Library of the European Union - Europeana. The fourth conference on the major project of the European Union for a single Digital Library - Europeana was held in Plovdiv.

Today, as a result of two-year effort, Mr. Emil Stoyanov received a letter from the European Commission, which contains recommendations on how to develop Europeana in Bulgaria. This letter is extremely important because it can serve as a basis for the establishment by the Bulgarian state of a National council on digitalization, which will coordinate the efforts to digitize the Bulgarian cultural heritage.

During the opening of the Second conference on Europeana, entitled "The Bulgarian content in Europeana", which took place on the 1st and 2nd October 2010 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, MEP Emil Stoyanov announced that he will award 10 scholarships for students from the University of Plovdiv. This is already happening. Theodora Stoycheva, Marina Angelska and Teodora Todorova, students of "Linguistics and Information Technology" are the first scholars who are already working hard to digitize materials related to the cultural heritage of Plovdiv.

Third Conference on the mega project of the European Union Europeana for a single digital library was held in the European Parliament in Brussels. The project Europeana gathered in Brussels, the Bulgarian scientific and political elite with the people from the European institutions, engines of the large-scale project. The conference was initiated by MEP Emil Stoyanov aiming to coordinate all Bulgarian efforts to present the Bulgarian cultural and historical heritage in the digital network.
It was attended by leaders of the Committee on Culture from both the European and the Bulgarian Parliament, as well as leading Bulgarian experts from libraries, museums, archives. Special guest was the Bulgarian EU Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva. She greeted the participants of the conference and said: "In today's world, where connections are digital, we must not stay behind. I have no doubts that your presence here will accelerate the digitalization of our cultural heritage. For us it is very pleasant, as we, who represent the Bulgarian people in the EP and I, as your Commissioner.., we are trying to open more windows to Bulgaria and to our culture."
Jacques de Decker, a member of the Comité des Sages (a high level group for strategic analysis on the digitalization of the European cultural heritage) to the European Commission, gave very high evaluation of the event organizer. He said: "Mr. Stoyanov, you are a prophet of this cause in Bulgaria. What we could wish is also in other countries to have more people like you who are so good advocates of Europeana." Jacques de Decker added that he learned many useful things from the Bulgarian specialists participating in the conference.

With a memorandum calling on the need for national policy on digitization of the cultural heritage, concluded the International Conference "Necessary steps for integration of Bulgaria into the Europeana".

It was organized by the Member of the European Parliament Emil Stoyanov in Plovdiv on 23 and 24 April and brought together for the first time in Bulgaria representatives of the European Commission, Foundation Europeana, the Ministry of Culture, the National Assembly and the biggest Bulgarian libraries, the academic and the cultural institutions involved in the project of digitization of the spiritual heritage of Europe.