Malta, along with the Netherlands, has been earmarked by the European Union to be bestowed with the honour of European Capital of Culture in 2018.

The European Capital of Culture programme was initially called the European City of Culture and was conceived in 1983 by Melina Mercouri, then serving as Greek Minister of Culture.

Mercouri believed that at the time, culture was not given the same attention as politics and economics and a project for promoting European cultures within the member states should be pursued.

The European City of Culture programme was launched in the summer of 1985 with Athens being the first title-holder. During the German Presidency of 1999, the European City of Culture programme was renamed the European Capital of Culture. So far, the EU has only named the countries earmarked, not the individual cities.

This will certainly be a feather in Malta’s cap and the obvious centre of attention will have to be Valletta. The various auberges, palazzos, bastions, and churches are obvious showcase pieces that will add all the weight to the award.

But we really must get our act together. The government and various other organisations have been plodding along at a good steady pace in refurbishing various historical buildings, preserving fresco paintings, painstaking restoration and generally highlighting the historical gems of Valletta. We also have the ongoing and highly successful and popular Valletta Waterfront regeneration project which has given a whole new lease of life to the port.

But while this is all going on, there are some travesties to our cultural heritage which go on day by day. The first, of course, has to be City Gate. As a people, we must surely be hoping that the government stays the course and engages world famous architect Renzo Piano to redesign the entrance. Valletta must indeed be a strange anomaly in being a perfectly planned out Baroque City with a Fascist architecture entrance.

Added to that, we have the open wound which is the ruins of the Opera House and it is literally an open wound, a gaping sore that blemishes Valletta’s layout. The rebuilding of the Opera House is also being entrusted to Signor Piano and while he has already stated that he will “probably have to go modern”, we hope that his good taste will prevail and give us a monument of a building to be proud of.

The third issue which desperately needs attention is Fort St Elmo. The star-shaped fort is about as Maltese as Malta is. This was the scene for the heroic delaying actions of the Knights Hospitaller in holding off the Saracens at this tiny, yet magnificently designed fort.

If they had not held out for days and weeks on end, then the very EU which is bestowing this award would probably not even exist as the balance of power would have changed the world map completely. Yet this fort is falling to pieces. The stonework is crumbling and the very spirit that it embodies is dying if not already dead.

The good news is that these sites are supposed to be in the pipeline for grandiose projects. The government seems to have finally realised that Valletta should not continue to be neglected as it has been by successive administrations. It is, after all, our capital city and should be treated with the respect that it deserves.

Whether or not they are complete by 2018 is another matter entirely. If Valletta is not up to standard by then, the authorities should simply refuse the award, as accepting it with Valletta in its current state is simply hypocritical.