"In Uno Plures" (?) EU Cultural Policy and the Governance of Europe

Abstract

Cultural Policy and Integration in Anthropological Perspective (1) Culture has an important value to people in is an essential element of integration and contributes to affirmation and vitality of model of and to Community's influence on international scene. Parliament 2000, 1 Although its goal is to develop a feeling of belonging to a shared culture, EU is also to specific aspects of Europe's cultures, e.g. minority languages. CEC 2002, 5 As two quotes cited above indicate, theme of Europe's (or cultures) has become an issue of growing concern for Union (EU). Yet there is something curiously contradictory in way concept of is conceived and deployed in EU official discourses, a confusion that is perhaps symptomatic of a more profound philosophical ambiguity over status and definition of Union and its people(s). In short, is Union (or, to use its earlier incarnation, Community), one people or many? And what is, or should be, relationship between peoplehood and in EU's emerging system of supranational governance? Whereas Parliament's statement speaks of the model of society and intrinsic value of culture to all people in Europe, a statement that belies a consensual idea of and and conspicuously avoids use of plural nouns, Commission's statement reminds us of many cultures that EU is keen to preserve and which constitute Europe's essential unity. This contrast between Europe conceived as a unified and singular entity, and Europe conceived as a space of an amalgamation of cultures, and by implication, of peoples and interests, also underlies some of key political divisions in way integration is imagined. As I shall argue below, none of EU's stock metaphors of unity in diversity, cultural mosaics, or family of cultures adequately address this fundamental contradiction between foundational idea of Europe as an ever-closer union among peoples of Europe, understood as a plurality, and idea of integration as a process leading to a European people. If quotes above are indicative of an increasing official emphasis on role of in of new they also epitomise important link between policy, identity-construction, and power or, to use terminology more typical of EU parlance, between social cohesion, European construction and governance. The drawing together of these themes around notion of is of recent origin. According to modern myth, it was Jean Monnet, celebrated French statesman and founding father of Communities, who first remarked, when looking back on a lifetime's work dedicated to creating a united that if we were to start over again, we would start with In fact, Monnet never said anything of kind, and none of EU founding fathers had a vision of as a binding force for unity. Like most myths, significance of this story lies less in its historical accuracy than in its telling, and in fact that it is still frequently cited by Union policy elites to support argument for increased European-level intervention in field of culture. Monnet's oft-cited apocryphal quote is important for two reasons. First, because it is indicative of growing political weight that policy professionals, since 1970s, have come to attach to idea of as a key ingredient, indeed, a catalyst, in integration process. Secondly, because it highlights a key point of this article: namely that development of EU policy cannot be properly understood outside of context of EU's wider political project of European Construction and its transition from a loosely structured free trade area into a fledgling, albeit ill-defined, supranational state. …

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