Schengen selected for European heritage accolade

Luxembourg's Village of Schengen has been selected to receive an award celebrating its European heritage.

The border town, synonymous with the free movement of people and goods, will become the first location in the Grand-Duchy to receive the European Heritage Label.

Schengen is among nine sites to be chosen for celebrating and symbolising European ideals, values, history and integration.

"The European Union is built on values such as peace, freedom, tolerance, solidarity. These values must not be taken for granted – we have to work for them every day," European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, Tibor Navracsics, said.

"All the sites on the European Heritage Label list promote these values and remind us of all those who fought to establish and preserve them."

An independent panel chose the nine locations from a list of 25 heritage sites put forward by 19 participating EU countries.

Leipzig's musical heritage sites in Germany, Dohány street synagogue complex in Hungary, Fort Cadine in Italy, Javorca Church in Slovenia, Former Natzweiler concentration camp and its satellite camps in France and Germany, Sighet Memorial in Romania, Bois du Cazier in Belgium and Maastricht Treaty in Netherlands will also receive the label.

The Commission will formally designate the sites in February, and an award ceremony will be held in March in Bulgaria.

The panel said Schengen, situated on the Moselle River, in the border triangle of Luxembourg, Germany and France, had become "synonymous with free movement in Europe".

The Schengen Agreement and the Schengen Implementation Convention were signed in the village on a river cruise ship in 1985 and 1990.

Schengen, previously put forward in 2013, and the other eight sites will join a list of 29 locations that have already received the label over the last four years.