From ‘European Cultural Heritage' to ‘Cultural Diversity'?

This article analyses the discursive shift in the EU cultural policy from culture-based identity to value-based citizenship. While the promotion of European cultural heritage proposed to embody the values of European integration and highlighted specific cultural references, intercultural dialogue is a procedural tool based on shared European values – also presented as universal. Therefore intercultural dialogue represents a departure from an ontological approach to European identity and culture. Promotion of cultural expressions is not abandoned but the concept of European cultural heritage lost its pivotal role in EU cultural policy to give way to a supposedly more inclusive frame.