Using and Negotiating European Cultural Heritage

Moving from the academic to the cultural field, this chapter shows the ways in which over the last 40 years the promotion of European cultural heritage has become a central element of EU cultural policy and an important means of defining Europeanness at the EU level. The concept of European cultural heritage is pivotal to the promotion of Europeanness because it functions as medium of both hegemonic and decentralized representations of Europe. Interestingly, the concept first appeared at the EU level in a motion for a resolution presented by the EP a few months before the Declaration on European identity of December 1973. Many scholars have interpreted this Declaration as a significant turn in the European integration process, indicative of the decision of the nine member states of the EC to exploit the concept of identity in order to give new momentum in a context of crisis.1 Although the introduction of the concept of European cultural heritage to the EP agenda in the years 1973–1974 was a notably less solemn affair, I argue that it exerted a greater influence on the process of instrumentalization of cultural identity at the European level. This chapter shows that, with the support of the EP, Commission officials used the protection of cultural heritage as a means of promoting a Community action in the cultural sector.