The city of Aalst, Belgium, faces the prospect of an unheard-of demotion: A decade after declaring its Carnival celebrations a valued cultural expression, UNESCO could revoke that designation over anti-Semitic imagery that has been part of the revelry.

So the city’s mayor, Christoph D’Haese, has tried to beat UNESCO to the punch. In a classic “you can’t fire me — I quit” moment, he sent the agency a letter on Tuesday, renouncing Aalst’s place on the list before it could be kicked off.

The mayor’s office does not have the authority to leave the agency’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list of its own accord, and such a request would have to come from Belgium’s UNESCO delegation, a spokeswoman for the international group said.

The committee in charge of the list plans to consider whether to remove Aalst at a meeting on Dec. 12 in Bogotá, Colombia, said the spokeswoman, Aurelia du Vignau.