We began this book by stating that Europe has not always been there. We want to conclude it by observing that, despite this fact, we have nevertheless been imagining it for quite some time. We need, therefore, to assume a critical reading of Europe that avoids the traps both of an essentialist and a nihilist reading. Otherwise stated, the fact that Europe is the result of the different ways in which it has been imagined over time does not mean that it does not exist. Although in the first part of this book we concentrated on the role that practices of collective remembrance played in the construction of a sense of belonging and common identity, in the second part, we explored moments when such practices turned into effective sites for the work on myth.

Myth and history are two distinct things. An account of the past can leave us completely indifferent and cannot, therefore, ever gain the emotional charge needed to turn narratives into myth. This does not mean that historical narratives are unable to generate a sense of belonging to a common polity. The narrative of Europe born out of the Second World War has, for instance, proved capable of generating a feeling of identification in certain contexts, but it has rarely assumed the features of a geographically spread full-fledged myth. This may be because no strong Other is available for such narratives to refer to – if we omit the Other of what the Europeans have been. To paraphrase Giesen (2004), we may say that this is due to the fact that the narrative of “Europe born out of the war” displays more the prosaic story of an identity built on the ruins of a catastrophe than the poetry of an identity based on triumph.

In the previous chapter, we argued that a myth is a process of work on a single narrative core that answers a need for significance. By disentangling some of the myths of Europe, we analyzed the way in which they are conveyed through icons and other symbolic vehicles. In doing so, we focused mainly on the internal dimension of European identity; that is, on “how Europeans perceive themselves as part of a common European project.” Our focus in these last two chapters is on the external dimension of European identity.

This chapter suggests that discussing European identity without reference to symbolic borders and the role of external Others is bound to fail. Many histories of Europe are based on a centric vision of expansion around a European core, and much of political science on Europe concentrates on the institutions of a political Europe, thus overlooking the ideational element of European legitimacy. We argue that the symbolic borders of Europe and the existence of external Others have, at times, been more important than Europe's center or its actual physical borders, especially in the first decades following the foundation of the EC. In the early 1950s, the weak state of European countries torn apart on the battlefields of the Second World War, as well as the swift emergence of the Cold War, left Western Europe unable to chart its own course for the future (Lundestad 2003) and in need of external sponsorship (namely from the United States) to protect itself from the threat of Eastern European communism.

Europe has not always been there. Both the name and the object are relatively recent in history. Although the origins of the name can be traced back to 700 BC, the appellation “Europe” came into its contemporary usage only after 1700 CE (Burke 1980). Its existence as a specifically political object is even more recent. Only in the second half of the twentieth century, with the first steps toward European integration, have the contours of a political community with this name emerged.

Furthermore, during the past sixty years of European construction, the borders of this entity have varied so much (from the first six founding members to the current twenty-seven members) that the geographical meaning of such a political object has fundamentally changed. Perhaps the most significant change lies in the fact that, whereas the old European Community was merely a Western European project, the current European Union (EU) has both an Eastern and a Western soul. One could also argue that the “old continent” is an ensemble of two halves, north and south. This poses a further challenge to attempts to answer any simple question, such as “What is Europe?”

As the previous chapters have shown, many scholars emphasize the symbolic and emotional deficit inherent in the construction of Europe. European citizens do not feel attached to European institutions, which are often perceived as part of a gray, Brussels bureaucracy. For some, this is the inevitable result of a process of political integration, understood as the spillover effect of economic imperatives; for others, it is the consequence of the abandonment of a truly federalist project in the early 1970s. Subsequently, the EU became a “regulatory state” (Majone 1996), a “performance-based” polity, which can (and should) rest on a merely output-oriented legitimacy (Scharpf 1999). According to some of the positions analyzed in Chapter 1, the European project could, therefore, be considered legitimate simply because it contributes to the well-being of its citizens; thus, it does not require any further symbolic underpinning or any common identity resembling those that support most national identities.

By contrast, others vindicate the need for a strong political and/or cultural identity to sustain the European project. In this view, Europe cannot build its legitimacy without relying on some form of identification on the part of its citizens in a series of common symbols, myths, and values (Henry 2001; Passerini 2003). If Europe is to be more than an economic and bureaucratic project, it must search for a common European identity. In this light, Europe needs its soul, and this soul can rise only from the common European cultural and historical heritage (Rudolph 2001).

We live in an “age of memory” (Nora 2002), in which the “politics of regret” is commonplace. In the previous chapter, we analyzed the role that collective remembrance played in the construction of a minimal core of European identity, with a focus mainly on Western Europe. There, we highlighted acts of collective remembrance for the Second World War. How have things changed after the 2004 and 2007 enlargements? Is post-enlargement Europe still united by its memory? Is Europe the same when seen from an Eastern or Western perspective? Has the expansion of the European Union (EU) created conducive conditions for the emergence of a shared “politics of regret” across the whole continent?

To speak in terms of “East-West” establishes the problematic dichotomy that evokes the different historical realities and trajectories of Europe. The 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall was a turning point for a “reunified” Europe but also cast a long shadow on Europe. Continuing to speak in these dichotomous terms clearly illustrates that the Cold War division continues to permeate the mindset of most (Western) Europeans. Not surprisingly, European citizens of the former Soviet bloc prefer to speak of “Central and Eastern Europe” to evoke internal differences within the former Comecon zone. In this chapter, we try to problematize this difference through a discussion of divided memories but, given the path dependency from the Cold War period, the phrase “East-West” is used consciously here, precisely to refer to such long-term influences.

In the previous chapter, we explored the relationship between the question of European identity and legitimacy. What is the specific role that collective memory plays within the interlink between the two? If the construction of a solid European identity depends on the political project of Europe, then how is such a project – and, consequently, such an identity – currently configured? Does such a thing as a common European identity exist? The task of this chapter is to address these issues by focusing on the specific role of collective memory.

Many authors have noticed a “symbolic deficit” that affects European institutions. As we have already suggested, European citizens do not feel attached to European institutions, or, when they do, their attachment varies from place to place, from time to time, and according to the age group expressing its opinion, if we are to believe the results of the EuroBarometers. For some, this is the inevitable effect of spillover from the process of economic integration; for others it is the consequence of the quasi-supranational character of the European Union (EU). The current European context provides a very interesting case for the study of memory building both because it is characterized by a complex process of pooling and sharing of sovereignty between nation-states and supranational institutions and because it is a process in fieri. Not only is the European construction very complex, but, as already discussed, no one knows the ultimate form it will take.

In Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality, Delanty (1995: vii) complained that, whereas many works dealt with the “Orient” as an invention of Europe, almost nothing existed on the idea of “Europe”: In his view, the common political roof embodied by the European Communities and the European Union was a construction in need of critical reassessment. More than fifteen years have passed since his seminal book was published, and many authors have taken up the challenge of understanding the meaning of “Europe” and how it was historically and thematically constructed to reinforce a sense of cohesion beyond national allegiances (Shore 2000; Passerini 2003; Stråth 2000a,b; Joas and Wiegandt 2005; Molho and Ramada Curto 2007; Persson and Stråth 2007).

In the course of this book, we have focused on myths and practices of collective remembrance as sites for the construction of a European identity. In doing so, we have alluded to the importance of religion, particularly in the last “sequences of Europe” emerging in European textbooks (Chapter 5). In this concluding chapter, we further analyze this point. As we discussed in Chapter 5, “Europe” began as a political project aimed at creating a sense of common identity in the aftermath of the Second World War, first designed around economic issues (in the early 1950s), then progressively enlarged to include other more political items, and merging finally into a single Union in 1993. The creation of this supranational entity has involved the establishment of an increasing array of domains in which Europeans are invited to feel part of a community of fate (Schicksalsgemeinschaft), including attempts to adopt a draft European Constitution in 2004.

By and large, the history of the European Union (EU) is that of a functionalist integration process. To the disappointment of all those who advocated the construction of a fully fledged federalist polity, with clearly defined supranational institutions, there has never been a clear constituting moment, with something like a general assembly of Europeans, that has then given rise to a common European polity. Instead, there have been a series of international treaties, which have instituted first the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), with its six member states, and, then, after a series of intermediate passages, the current EU, with its twenty-seven member states.

Historically, the European construction can be compared to a growing kernel, always spilling over into new sectors. The core of this kernel is the ECSC, established in 1952, which grew into the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (also referred to as EURATOM), with the Rome Treaty in 1957. In July 1987, the Single Act merged these communities into one body, the European Community (EC). Over this founding period, the European Parliament moved from a consultative assembly, to which national parliaments sent a few delegates in charge of overseeing the work of the nascent European executive, into a representative European Parliament elected directly, since 1979, by European citizens. At that time, it was clear that Europe was becoming more than a market space.

Many authors have noticed the symbolic deficit that affects the European institutions. European citizens do not feel attached to them. For some this is the inevitable result of a process of integration that is the spill-over effect of economic integration, while for others it is the consequence of the quasi-supranational character of the European Union. The current European context is a very interesting case for the study of memory building, both because it is characterized by a complex process of pooling and sharing of sovereignty between nation-states and supranational institutions and because it is a process in fieri. The European construction is more than very complex; ultimately, we do not know where it will lead us.

While some authors accept as a fact the symbolic deficit of European institutions, others seek to find a remedy for it, or at least a deeper understanding of its nature. According to some of them, given the bloody nature of its past, Europe could only build its symbolic reservoir in other dimensions. By looking at its present and its future, some have proposed a cultural policy focusing on symbols such as Europe's flag or its anthem. In this view, those symbols represent the ideal medium for a process of identity building among citizens alien to each other such as the European citizens. By looking at the mythical time, others have pointed to figures such as Beethoven or Napoleon, or the eponymous Greek heroine ‘Europa’ who was raped by the bull, as possible symbolic sources for the European identity.

This also seems to be the road taken by the European institutions themselves. For instance, an analysis of the history of the website of the European Union reveals that since 2002 there has been a clear intention to emphasize the importance of what are defined as the ‘symbols of the European Union’, namely the flag, the anthem, and 9 May, Europe Day. From 1997 until 2002, the website of the European Union was quite limited and contained no mention of the symbolic dimension of European integration. Even the history of the European institutions was presented by using only a minimal yearly chronology.