Qualicities is helping Europes historic cities and regions to overcome these barriers. Run by AVEC, the Alliance de Villes Européennes de la Culture, the operation is developing a lasting quality system and brand. Adapting a method already used successfully by Frances chambers of commerce and industry, the quality system recognises, develops and enhances the skills of the member cities personnel. This improves the quality of project management in the cities and of the services they offer the public. Achievements: Achievements so far The QUALICITIES project gathers 15 partners in Europe and aims at developing a quality system and label for the sustainable development of historical cities. It began in Arles (Fr), on May 2005, with a general presentation of the project. In October a forum was held in Toledo (Sp), where a draft version of the Good Practices Referent Document was presented to the partners. Then the AFAQ-AFNOR expert team (selected by the partners to bring in their quality management know how) visited 6 partner communities to enrich the referent document and present a 2nd draft version in Evora (Pt) in February 2006. After that, partners were to set up a 'local support committee' in charge of the local implementation of the GP Referent Document. In May 2006, Qualicities lead partners met in Pézenas (Fr) to exchange the visit experiences and classify under different themes the identified GPs. The Referent Document and the communication plan were discussed and upgraded. In July 2006, lead partners met in Ubeda (Sp), to validate the latest referent document draft which was used by the partners to test the approach. During six months, each partner assessed its communitys organisation & policies by the standards of the referent document and produced a situation report –validated by the local support committee. On that basis, every partner could begin to design their Local Progress Plan (LPP). In December 2006, partners met in Anderlecht, to share their experiences concerning the management of their local support committee and the creation of their LPP. From then on that key document was used to prepare the external audits. An independent AFAQ-AFNOR auditor presented the audit process and the label attribution conditions to the partners in Anderlecht and, on May 7 and 8, Evora (Pt) initiated the audit process. In March 2007 in Tours (Fr), the method and label was introduced to the members of the Alliance of European Cultural Cities. On May, a meeting was held in Cosenza (It) to assess the audit process. The auditor and the Evora team described and discussed the experiment with the other partners. Workshops on organisation of future audits and perpetuation of the system were organised. 5 initial audits followed: Vienne (Fr) in July, Arles (Fr) in September, Birgu (Mt), Anderlecht (Be) in October and Pézenas (Fr) in December. The final conference of the project was held in Baranya (Hr) in October 2007. Representatives of the 14 partner cities were present. This session was dedicated to the perpetuation of the project. The Label Committee, after deliberating, attributed the label certificates to the first 5 audited cities. During semester 6, the web site (www.qualicities.org) was continuously updated. Promotion packages and newsletter 6 were produced and disseminated. From November, QUALICITIES progress method & European Label were taken in charge by the AVEC network for its further development and continuation.