Bridge over troubled waters?

What Europeans are we? What makes us Europeans? Sure, history played a crucial role in European integration. The integration process initially evolved around a strong cultural, history-centred element that was based on real and cultural memories, historical interpretations of Europe’s past and, most saliently, the two World Wars and the Cold War. In some way, what makes us Europeans is our

heritage of war surmounted by peace. This has been symbolically recognised by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union in 2012. However, being European is also being able to live in diversity and engage into demanding intercultural exchanges and sustainable compromises that respect diversity, belonging to various communities or places but also enhance dialogue and understanding. The European cultural heritage is a nexus for our capacity to be and become Europeans. The European Commission’s DG Research and Innovation, in cooperation with the FLASH-IT FP7 dissemination project and APRE, organised in October 2014 a successful workshop on history, cultural heritage and identities. The workshop formulated policy recommendations on how to make Europe a desire for being together rather than a burden to share and stated strongly that the participatory potential of historical heritage research, although still underestimated, should play an integrationist role in Europe and contribute to Europeanisation.