European Memory in Action

The use of memory as a political resource by European institutions is not necessarily an example of the creation of a founding myth on the model of the nation state. While the search for a grand narrative is clearly a motivation for the actors, it coexists with strategies aiming at other types of legitimization or that pursue short-term interests. The increased importance of European memory thus does not mean an end to fairy-tale versions of national histories. A European memory can propose alternative projects, drawing on the worlds of national imaginations in order to step beyond or rework them. In this paper, three scenarios observable when European memory is invoked are illustrated in a case study. The first is Europeanization, with European institutions playing a part in developing historical sites of national importance into European sites of memory. The second is the articulation of a specific memory of the process of European integration. This takes the form not only of support to networks of historians specializing in European integration after 1945 but also of the promotion of a grand history of Europe over the longer term. The third is an explicit ambition to endow the EU with a grand narrative of its origins that is autonomous from national histories. The debate on the Christian heritage of Europe begun during the Constitutional Treaty process is a concrete application of this aim.