Cultural relations between Italy and Estonia are regulated by the Agreement on Cultural, Scientific and Technological Cooperation signed in May 1997 that came into force on January 30th 2000. This is a general framework agreement meant to develop and put into practice activities that will help to improve mutually understanding of each other’s cultural heritage while fostering cultural, education, science and technology related co-operation between the two countries.
Within the framework of the same agreement, Estonia and Italy agreed on several executive programmes to bring Italian scholars, students and cultural figures to Estonia and to facilitate the culture, education, science and technology related co-operation. These programmes support also the translation of literature, co-operation between library, archive and heritage conservation workers, helping them to participate more actively in cultural events. Both countries support the co-operation of culture and art institutions by offering research scholarships for research, language and literature studies and cultural research.
The new executive Program for Cooperation in Culture and Education between the Government of the Italian Republic and the Government of the Republic of Estonia for 2022-2026 was signed in Tallinn on August 29th 2022.
The main Estonian universities have been interested in strengthening cooperation with their Italian counterparts even through the EU Scholarship Programme ERASMUS. Thanks to it, many Italian students attend Estonian Universities.
In Estonia, one can study Italian in several academic institutions such as the University of Tallinn. Italian can be taken as a secondary subject at the University of Tartu or at various language schools.
Thanks to the scholarships of the Italian government and the activity of the Italian Embassy in Tallinn, a great number of Estonian students and graduate students have been able to study in Italy.
According to the platform CINECA-MIUR, there would be 42 cooperation agreement between Italian universities and their Estonian counterparts.
Turin Egyptian Museum, in collaboration with this Embassy, organized in Tallinn an exhibition dedicated to Ancient Egypt with the title “Egypt of Glory” at Kumu Art Museum. The exhibition was inaugurated on October 9th 2020, with the presence of the Estonian Minister of Culture Tõnis Lukas, and stayed open until March 21st 2021.
Furthermore, on March 24th 2023, at Tallinn Maritime Museum, the Exhibition “Venice – Queen of the Seas” was inaugurated. At the inauguration attended Ambassador Daniele Rampazzo and Council Member of the Municipality of Venice Simone Venturini. The exhibition showed the rise, the apogee and the fall of the Republic of Venice and the ongoing fight of the city against the rise of sea level and mass tourism.
Recurring events are Italian Design Day, the Week of the Italian Language, the Week of Italian Cinema and Day of the Italian Research in the world.
The Cultural Office of the Embassy offers information and advice on enrolment in Italian schools and universities. The Consular Office issues the necessary statements of equal value for qualifications earned in schools and universities within the consular jurisdictions in order to achieve equipollence of bachelor and master degrees with their Italian counterpart, help in enrolment to Italian Universities and Schools and with recognition in Italy of university study and the assignment of scholarships.