To the attention of 
Prof. Alex Torpiano, Executive President of Din l’Art Helwa 
 

Dear Executive President,

Dear Alex,
 
On this day, when your organisation Din l’Art Helwa celebrates its 55th birthday, the entire Europa Nostra family wishes to convey to you our heartfelt congratulations on this important milestone.  We wish to pay tribute to 55 years of tireless commitment to the safeguard and enhancement of the precious cultural heritage and landscapes of Malta which form a unique contribution to our shared European heritage ever since the creation of your organisation by visionary personalities gathered around the late Judge Maurice Caruana Curran. 
 
 
 
We are proud and grateful that Maurice Caruana Curran and Din l’Art Helwa figure among the pioneers of Europa Nostra and that your organisation has been continuously and actively involved in the work of Europa Nostra ever since your creation. We are grateful to have been able to count on the support of one of your predecessors, Martin Scicluna, as Board member of Europa Nostra, and more recently, the invaluable support of another former Executive President of Din l’Art Helwa, Simone Mizzi, as one of the Vice-Presidents of Europa Nostra. And we are also very pleased that you have yourself decided to become a member of one of our European Heritage Awards Juries. 
 
We also wish to convey to you our special words of praise for the outstanding work which Din l’Art Helwa has done to restore and preserve as much as 41 heritage sites that are standing proudly today for the benefit of present and future generations thanks to the tireless and generous mobilisation of so many remarkable volunteers. We encourage you and other dedicated members of Din l’Art Helwa, to gain resolve and take inspiration from all what you have achieved in the course of the last 55 years to continue your important work celebrating excellence, campaigning heritage at risk and also influencing policies and planning decisions in Malta. 
 
Today, Malta, Europe and the world are facing many new challenges, including climate change and green and just transitions of our societies and economies. The voice of Din l’Art Helwa, amplified by the voice of Europa Nostra is needed more than ever to ensure that the multiple values and the full potential of cultural heritage are fully deployed for Europe’s recovery and revival in the aftermath of the COVID19 pandemic, as advocated in our European Heritage Alliance Manifesto presented on 9 May – Europe Day 2020. We very much hope that you and all your members will sign this important Manifesto and will disseminate as widely as possible through your own network of partners and contacts in Malta (for the link see below).
 
We look very much forward to many more years of joint action on furthering our shared cultural heritage and our shared European values for the benefit of our citizens and their communities. 
 
With warmest birthday wishes, 
 
Hermann Parzinger, Executive President 
(on behalf of the Europa Nostra Board)
 
 
& 
 
Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, Secretary General
(on behalf of the Europa Nostra Secretariat in The Hague & Brussels) 
 
Sneška Quaedvlieg – Mihailović
Secretary General