The Camino de Santiago Associations of Friends are non-profit institutions found across the world that have worked for decades to conserve the Jacobean Route through the dissemination of its values and care of pilgrims.

These entities first emerged in 1950 in Paris, France. They were initially born as heirs to the old guilds of pilgrims to Santiago (also known as brotherhoods and fraternities) that extended across Europe between the 12th and 18th centuries with the aim of helping pilgrims on their journey to the distant destination of Compostela. By offering pilgrims their hospitals, information on the route, help, etc.; the brotherhoods altruistically supported pilgrims.

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After the unveiling of the milestone, the commissioner participated in a meeting on the Camino de Santiago and the Xacobeo 2021, which included speeches by professor and chairman of the International Committee of Experts on the Way, Paolo Caucci von Saucken, and doctor and professor, Lucia Gay, among other specialists in the Jacobean pilgrimages.

In addition to bringing both areas closer to each other, this institutional trip allowed various matters to be discussed, such as the preparations of various actions to promote the Way of Saint James in Pistoia, a city that, during the next Compostela Holy Year, will have the papal privilege of opening a Puerta Santa. Pistoia is the only city in the world, other than Santiago de Compostela, that has had a genuine relic of St. James the Apostle.

In the category for the Associations of Friends of the Way of Saint James, both national and international, the jury decided to give the award to the Fundación Acogida Cristiana en los Caminos de Santiago for the quality of its outreach activities and for their research projects. In addition, a special mention was given to the Asociación de Amigos de los Caminos de Santiago a Madrid because of the special work they are doing in dynamising, training for and promoting the Jacobean Route. On the international scene, the winners were the Asociata Prientenilor Camino de Santiago and the Círculo Chileno de Amigos del Camino de Santiago de Compostela who share the prize.

Another of the recognised areas corresponds to the projects submitted by natural or legal persons and small and medium-sized enterprises. Six candidates were put forward for this category. The first prize was given to Leidiz, for its project aiming to travel the Mar de Arousa route and the Rio Ulla by kayak. The second prize was awarded to Tdinet App, which presented a project based on a mobile phone application that allows people to access selected information on the Camino de Santiago.

Finally, in the research category, two different types of award were given. In the first, aimed at universities, research centres and independent researchers, the jury decided to honour Albert Feliu Soler due to his innovative and multidisciplinary research on the psychological well-being that the Way of Saint James pilgrimage causes and promotes. The second award, for non-university education centres in Galicia, went to the CEIPP lurilingüe del Camiño Inglés in Oroso, thanks to its proposed pilgrimage with year 6 pupils from Finchale Abbey, considered to be the first stage of the English Way (Camino Inglés).

In the case of the Council of Europe, the institution was recognised for its key role in publicising, promoting and raising awareness of the Jacobean Route and the values associated with it. In fact, Feijóo stated, the institution declared the Way to be the first Cultural Route of the Council of Europe in 1987 and promoted the Jacobean values as common European heritage.

The total amount of such aid amounts to 90,000 euros which is distributed between the two lines of this call for applications. The first, for projects related to hospitality and activities aimed at the dissemination of Jacobean culture, is allocated 55,000 euros. The second line, which focuses on publications, is allocated 35,000 euros.

This line of aid is part of the work of the Xunta (Regional Government) of Galicia, to support the work of the Associations of Friends of Camino de Santiago, which add up to more than 300 around the world. In addition, their contribution is taken into account in the Strategic Plan of the Xacobeo 2021 through a line of action that recognises their work, especially as ambassadors of the Camino in other communities and abroad.

We need to remember that the work of these associations is one of the great pillars of the Camino de Santiago and that, therefore, their involvement and collaboration in the planning of the Xacobeo 21 is key. In this sense, the creation of a round table has already been proposed to advance in new projects, broadening the great collaboration developed between the Xunta and the Jacobean associative movement in recent years in our community.

The NAT’s future event, to be held in 2020 in Santiago de Compostela, will consist of a conference on the possible ways of managing sustainable tourism in the EU and a meeting between regional and local representatives of the CoR

At today’s meeting of the NAT there was also a general debate on the consequences of mass tourism in Europe and its impact on regional and local communities in Europe

Brussels, 16 September 2019

In 2020, Galicia will host a meeting of the Committee of the Regions on the Way of Saint James as a different tourism model in Europe. This resulted from a vote that took place today in Brussels, in which Galicia was competing against a proposal by the German city of Wismar, capital of North-West Mecklenburg. After a general vote fraught with uncertainty, the members of the CoR finally chose Galicia, which will highlight the European character of our community as the final stage of the Way of Saint James and strengthen ties within the European Union, based on the values of solidarity and harmony.

Jesús Gamallo, the managing director of Foreign Affairs and EU Relations announced that the Galician proposal of external activities will consist of a meeting of the CoR’s members, along with a conference on the possible models of sustainable tourism in the EU, with the Camino de Santiago as a representative case within this economic sector. Both of these activities are scheduled to take place during the first half of 2020 in Santiago de Compostela. Gamallo contended the relevance of the Galician proposal before the other European local and regional representatives, as it directly relates to the work programme and policy priorities of the NAT and of the Committee of the Regions itself regarding the challenge of sustainable tourism.

For the Galician Government, the Way of Saint James sets a good example for other European regions and cities searching for a tourism model that can combine economic development and competitiveness with the sustainability of natural resources and heritage, functioning as the structuring element for regional culture and social and geographic cohesion. In addition, the director general also stressed that the development of new models of tourism must go hand in hand with progressive digitalisation and innovation, in order to achieve an attractive, competitive and sustainable touristic offer.

In this vein, the Xunta de Galicia will organise the NAT meeting on the Way of Saint James in 2020 and on other possible avenues for sustainable tourism in the cities and regions of the EU, as a prelude to the 2021 Xacobeo project. Within two years, the 2021 Xacobeo will celebrate the Jacobean Holy Year in Galicia to, amongst other things, highlight and promote the cultural, natural, human and business wealth of the Way of Saint James; publicise the cultural Jacobean route’s heritage; promote the revitalisation of rural areas crossed by the Way; and invite dialogue on this great European cultural route.

Debate on the current state of the tourism sector in the European Union
The debate, which opened the fourth annual meeting of the NAT, is entitled ‘Tourism: new trends, challenges and solutions’. It was introduced by the chairman of the NAT, Finnish politician Ossi Martikainen. Various members of the CoR, representatives of the Directorate General (DG GROW) of the European Commission and the president of the Network of European Regions for Competitive and Sustainable Tourism (NECSTouR) of which Galicia is a part, also participated.

This general debate on European tourism served as a focal point for the existing worry in both regional and local EU administrations as well as in the European Committee of the Regions itself about the widespread increase of European tourism. Specifically, worry about the significant pressure placed on infrastructure, natural resources and capacity of local communities to welcome, year after year, millions of international tourists. This situation is leading to some of the most popular European destinations (Venice, Bruges, Dubrovnik…) to increasingly take measures to protect their landscapes, monuments and local populations.

For this reason, NAT decided to hold this debate in order to discuss the question of sustainability in the European tourism industry and its impact on local communities and regional authorities across the EU. This area of work of the European Committee of the Regions regarding the possible forms of sustainable tourism ties in with a document published by the EU Council in May that indicates that tourism is one of the core sectors of the European economy, with an increasingly positive impact on economic growth, regional development and employment across Europe. This is because the tourism sector represents close to 10% of the Union’s GDP and 12 million jobs. In fact, the European Union is the first tourist destination in the world, with a share of over 40% of the world market in 2018.

The European Committee of the Regions’ NAT Commission
In this mandate, Galicia participates both in the Committee on Natural Resources (NAT) as well as the European Committee of the Regions’ Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX). CoR’s NAT addresses topics such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), rural development, forestry, food production, the common fisheries policy or maritime affairs policy, among other topics.

The Committee of the Regions is the consultative assembly in which local and regional authorities in the European Union are represented. The representative member of the Autonomous Community of Galicia is the president of the Xunta de Galicia, while the post of alternate member is held by the director general of Foreign Affairs and EU Relations.

During the event, the Culture and Tourism minister indicated that the milestone, installed in the heart of the French town, would serve to consolidate ties between Galicia and Lorient, “two lands that have an established centuries-old link through the Via Turonensis”, a French route that joined the Northern Way and the French Way, the main route to Santiago de Compostela. This milestone is located opposite the Lorient Town Hall and very close to where Lorient’s Interceltic Festival is celebrated. This year, Galicia will participate as an invited entity.

The sign has the main symbols of the Way: a conch shell, one of the oldest and most representative symbols of the Jacobean Route; a yellow arrow, pointing you in the right direction, and the kilometre count, indicating the distance to the Cathedral of Santiago.

He did it during the presentation of the Strategic Plan for the Xacobeo 2021 before members of the Church, mayors of the more than 120 municipalities through which the roads run, Jacobean and cultural associations and tourism managers, a broad representation of Galicia which.

This road map which has contributions from more than 600 people, entities, political organisations and pilgrims. For this reason, he called for the involvement of Galician, Spanish and European society as a whole so that Galicia can show in the Xacobeo 2021 all its potential and capacities not only in the cultural, tourist and religious sectors, but also in the economic and social spheres.

The works will be part of Galicia, un relato no mundo, the first major international exhibition of the Xacobeo 21 programme, which will open next November at the Museo Centro Gaiás de la Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

The Vatican’s Liber Sancti Iacobi is, along with Santiago’s original, one of only three illuminated Calixtine codices; it allows us to see graphic details lost in the original Compostelan document, such as the face of Emperor Charlemagne himself.

In the Middle Ages, several reproductions of the Codex Calixtinus were made in Compostela with the aim of spreading the cult and pilgrimage to Santiago throughout Europe, helping it reach the important intellectual centres of worship of the time. The Liber Sancti Iacobi itself was written with the desire to connect Compostela and Galicia with the rest of Europe, it created the legend of Santiago’s appearance to the Emperor Charlemagne, the most prestigious figure in medieval Europe, and his arrival in Compostela.

The Cancionero da Vaticana is, together with the Cancionero de Ajuda (Ajuda Songbook) and the Cancionero de la Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (Songbook of the National Library of Portugal), one of the corpora in which the medieval Galician Portuguese lyric is kept. It is a work with an exceptional symbolic value for Galicia, but also central to Europe’s literary tradition, since the Portuguese Galician lyric, together with poetry in Occitan (south of France) and Oïl (north of France), were the continent’s first literary expressions in the Romance language.

This is a monumental collection of 1,200 cantigas which were copied in Italy at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries by order of the Italian humanist Angelo Colocci; unfortunately, the original documents were lost. It contains pieces by the most emblematic names of medieval Galician literary tradition: the kings Alfonso X El Sabio and Don Dinís, Paio Gomes Chariño, Afonso Eanes do Cotón, Pero da Ponte, Meendinho or Airas Nunes, among many others.