Becoming Europeans: Cultural Identity and Cultural Policies

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Becoming Europeans

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Becoming Europeans Cultural Identity and Cultural Policies Monica Sassatelli

© Monica Sassatelli 2009 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–53742–2 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

To Maia: benvenuta, welcome


Contents

List of Figures

ix

List of Tables and Boxes

x

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

xi

Acknowledgements

xiii

Introduction 1 Europeanization: from integration to identity, via culture 2 Researching Europeans: a note on method and available evidence 3 Plan of the book

1 1 6 11

Part I Making the Europeans: Cultural Identity and Cultural Policy 1 Imagined Europe: Narratives of European Cultural Identity 1.1 Europe as an idea and an institutional project 1.2 European cultural identity: a review 1.3 European cultural identity in official discourse 2 European Cultural Policies 2.1 Starting again with culture: EU cultural policies in the politics of integration 2.2 A ‘Europe without dividing lines’: the COE’s think-tank role 2.3 Grassroots Europe 2.4 Concluding remarks vii

19 20 25 39 46 48 58 68 73

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Part II Being and Becoming: the European Capitals of Culture 3 A Simple Idea and a Vision: the ECOC Programme 3.1 A new cultural map of Europe 3.2 ECOC and culture-led urban regeneration 3.3 The European dimension 4 A ‘Wealth of Urban Cultures’: the European Cities of Culture in 2000 4.1 Building the European cultural space of 2000 4.2 Unity and diversity in practice: the European dimension of ECOCs 2000 4.3 Local content in a European frame: identities in the ECOCs 2000 4.4 Concluding remarks

79 82 94 99 109 110 120 129 137

Part III Europe as a Landscape: the European Landscape Convention 5 From Monuments to Landscapes: the European Landscape Convention 5.1 Europeanization’s landscape 5.2 The ELC discursive and relational field 5.3 A social demand for landscape

141 143 152 163

6 Europe as a Landscape: Unity in Diversity in Practice 6.1 Landscapes of Europe, Europe as landscape 6.2 The unity of landscape as the experience of diversity 6.3 Towards a new cultural and spatial logic 6.4 Concluding remarks

168 169 176 184 190

Conclusion

193

Notes

201

Bibliography

214

Index

229

List of Figures 3.1 4.1 6.1 6.2

ECOCs 1985–2013 The official visual representation of the ECOCs 2000 The ELC in its ‘field’ Civilscape founding meeting, at Villa Careggi, Florence

ix

89 112 181 183

List of Tables and Boxes Tables 3.1 The programme European City/Capital of Culture (ECOC) 4.1 ECOCs 2000: Cities, themes and ‘joint projects’ 5.1 Signatures and ratifications of the ELC

84 115 146

Boxes 3.1 An example of the EU’s evolving cultural action: ECOC’s policy 4.1 Everyday life in Bologna ECOC 2000: a field journal extract 5.1 The ELC’s specific measures at national and European level

x

85 128 159

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations AECC CADSES CAP CDPATEP CEC CIVILSCAPE CLRAE COE COR DEFRA DGX EB EC ECOC ECSC EEC ENELC

ESDP ETFCD EU EURATOM ELC GATT INGO IUCN LOTO NGO REKULA

Association of European Cities of Culture in the year 2000 Central Adriatic Danubian South-Eastern European Space Common Agricultural Policy Steering Committee for Cultural Heritage and Landscape Commission of European Communities Network of NGOs for the European Landscape Convention Congress of Local and Regional Authorities Council of Europe Committee of the Regions Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [UK] Directorate General Ten of the European Commission for Education and Culture Eurobarometer European Community European City/Capital of Culture European Coal and Steal Community European Economic Community European Network of Local and Regional Authorities for the Implementation of the European Landscape Convention European Spatial Development Perspective European Task Force on Culture and Development European Union European Community of Atomic Energy European Landscape Convention General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade International Non-governmental Organization International Union for Conservation of Nature Landscape Opportunities for Territorial Organization Non-governmental Organization Restructuring Cultural Landscapes xi

xii Becoming Europeans

SURE TEU UNESCO UNISCAPE WCCD

Successful Restoration and Rehabilitation Accompanying Infrastructural Interventions Treaty on the European Union United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation European Network of Universities for the Implementation of the European Landscape Convention World Commission of Culture and Development

Acknowledgements

The work on which the book is based began over ten years ago as my PhD research on the European Cities of Culture programme; that first grant at the University of Parma, from the Italian MIUR (Ministry of Education, University and Research), is one I still wish to gratefully mention. The research on the European Landscape Convention could begin thanks to my postdoctoral ‘Jean Monnet Fellowship’ at the European University Institute in Florence, where I also met many of the colleagues and friends that appear in the list below. The final phase of that project was instead partially funded by the Italian CNR (National Centre of Research, Programme ‘Promozione Ricerca’) at the Istituto Cattaneo in Bologna. I wish here to acknowledge both. The last few months of writing up were spent in my new intellectual home, the Department of Sociology of the University of Sussex, a very welcoming and stimulating environment from which this book has also profited. Finally, the support and encouragement from Palgrave – and in particular of Jill Lake and Christabel Scaife – has given me the sometimes needed pressure and always welcome encouragement to complete what I had started. Many colleagues and friends have helped the completion of one or more of the various steps that have led to this book, whether it was discussing the book project or reading (sometimes more than once) one, several or all chapters, providing and discussing drafts of their own forthcoming works or inviting me to present and discuss mine at conferences and seminars, and surely in many other ways that the long term and multiple nature of this endeavour makes it now difficult to specify. Indeed, as I feel I could never be detailed and accurate enough in my thanks, I chose the easy way of simply making an alphabetical list, expressing in this undifferentiated way a gratitude that I hope to be able to demonstrate personally in the future. I wish to thank for their indispensable help: Cristiano Bee, Richard Bellamy, Franco Bianchini, J. Peter Burgess, Jasper Chalcraft, Maguelonne Dejeant-Pons, Gerard Delanty, Bruno De Witte, Graham Fairclough, Adrian Favell, Mauro Felicori, Alessandro Ferrara, Francesco Francioni, Jack Goody, Roberto Grandi, Cathleen Kantner, Judith Kapferer, Harlan Koff, Martin Kohli, Stefan Immerfall, Yudhishthir Raj Isar, Yves Luginbühl, Raffaele Milani, Giuliano Piazzi, Gianfranco Poggi, Marco Santoro, Roberta Sassatelli, xiii

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François Seguin, Yasemin Soysal, Bo Sträth, Anna Triandafyllidou, Peter Wagner, Helen Wallace. Finally, even more generally but certainly not less truly I wish to thank all my interviewees and the people I met during my fieldwork: without them this book really would not have been possible.

Introduction

1 Europeanization: from integration to identity, via culture Finding ‘Europe’ and ‘identity’ in a book’s title is now as common as it is vague. However, if ‘European integration’ appears in the first couple of sentences, the subject is probably primarily the post-Second World War institutional (mainly economic and political) polity- and policy-making within the European Union’s expanding and deepening institutions. If it has ‘European idea’, or even ‘myth’, ‘consciousness’ and the like, it is probably more about an historical or philosophical approach tracing what Europe has been, or ought to be. If it has ‘European societies’, it is likely to be a comparative sociological or anthropological analysis of whole forms of social organization or single aspects of them across Europe, where the latter becomes little more than a collective noun for subjects that are defined otherwise, mainly in national terms, but also at other governmental levels or in terms of gender, race, age group, and so on. This reflects the polysemy of Europe, with its overlapping, but also contrasting and contested, meanings. These in turn fuel the ambiguity of the phenomenon that increasingly goes by the name of Europeanization, a term that strives to be more inclusive and less biased than European integration itself. As such – that is, because it is more encompassing but also ambiguous – it seems to serve an increasing share of the literature on Europe. This accompanies in particular recent, rather late, sociological interest that prefers Europeanization to the more strongly connoted European integration and addresses with it processes of societal transformation, pointing to a simultaneous reconfiguration of cultures, identities and forms of governance, which affect the way cultural and territorial ‘units’ are constituted and given coherence, for both collectivities and individuals.1 1

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This book could have – indeed, has – all three expressions listed above at the outset, because they all contribute to the make-up of its approach, but more importantly they are all part of its object of inquiry. It does concentrate on European institutions because it is about explicit institutional attempts at creating (or ‘reawakening’) a sense of European belonging or identity, as a prominent example of institutional identitybuilding and forms of resistance to it in today’s conditions. It does consider wider cultural ideas of Europe, even if its aim is neither to validate one or a synthesis of them nor propose a new one, but rather to see how they are important elements, or ‘repertoires’, that become available to different people at different times when articulating the discourse of European identity and informing and legitimating practices that appeal to it. With the third approach it shares the sociological outlook, although it does not compare national societies or identities, as it tries to single out what a common European narrative is, not as a mechanical sum of parts defined otherwise, but as it informs and defines a ‘new’, emerging subjectivity. With this premise, the book focuses, at the theoretical level, on the academic and institutional debate on European cultural identity. It places this debate in the broader context of Europeanization and the formation of a European society led by institutional projects since the Second World War (on the one hand, the several European Communities then Union, and on the other, the Council of Europe), as well as within wider processes of globalization, the challenges to monolithic collective identities and the new centrality of the issue of diversity. At an empirical level, the book explores two main case studies. The first concentrates on the identity-building intentions and (sometimes unintended) effects of EU cultural policy, through a general presentation and in-depth analysis of one of its most representative actions, namely the European City (then Capital) of Culture (ECOC) programme established in 1985. As well as providing an insight into the development and style of EU cultural intervention in general, this programme – with its declared ambition of fostering a ‘European cultural space’ – provides a unique viewpoint for a sociological appraisal of the ‘unity in diversity’ rhetoric and practices of identity-building. This has come to be the dominant institutional and academic representation of Europe, as a discursive and symbolic solution to the perceived conflict of having to create a new ‘layer’ of identity without overcoming, but rather building on, material already solidly appropriated by other such layers, the national one first of all. Through this case study the book therefore addresses issues of fundamental political and cultural relevance, such as

Introduction 3

processes of identity-formation, the legitimacy of cultural policy and its role as a means of social engineering, and the agency of its subjects given the institutional and relational field in which they act. The second, symmetrical, case study provides a different angle on the same issues by considering the Council of Europe’s strategy of Europeanization, which since its foundation in 1949 has been based on a much more cultural approach. In this case the focus is on the European Landscape Convention (ELC), first signed in 2000. Both its rhetoric and instances of implementation are investigated. This allows for an exploration and comparison of the rather different institutional path of identity policies and politics pursued by the COE, whilst focusing on a specific object, landscape – claimed by the COE to be a distinctive element of ideas of Europe – which is key to issues of public relevance, such as quality of life, civil society participation in governance and so-called deterritorialization in contemporary society. Incidentally, one could also note that although, at first sight, an unlikely couple, cities and landscapes are in many ways complementary aspects of imaginaries of Europe. ‘Urban civilization’, the development of a mercantile, bourgeois city, has been one of the many appropriations of Europe (Weber, 1951; Benevolo, 1993; Parker, 2004; see also chapter 1) – one that sporadically re-emerges in the ECOC – but at the same time, partly because mass urbanization and nationalization often coincided in modern Europe, cities, especially capitals, have become the loci of national culture (Jenkins, 2008). Similarly, although a common ‘demotic European culture’ (ibid.) can be identified in the Europe of peasants and farmers, and thus their (rural) landscape, the latter too has successfully been appropriated, mainly through a predominantly urban sensibility, as a ‘compelling symbol of national identity’ (Lowenthal, 1993: 6). Current attempts at re-Europeanizing cities and landscapes, and their new, contemporary modalities, are thus all the more revealing and relevant. Until recently, partly in relation to the limited sociological interest and the progressive appropriation of ‘Europe’ by the institutions that have now abandoned all qualifications (such as ‘economic’) and simply call themselves ‘European’, the focus of scholarly attention has been on political identity and on Europe as a polity. Issues of citizenship, demos and democratic deficit, through a thematization of major policies (economic and security in the first place) and actors (with a preference for national agencies and their intergovernmental negotiations) have dominated the scene. This has resulted, among other things, in the neglect of European cultural identity and the cultural policies that were progressively introduced, with growing impetus since the 1980s,

4

Becoming Europeans

precisely to complement legal and economic integration by drawing on wider, if more indefinite still, cultural foundations. When not totally overlooked by analysts, these cultural policies, promoted by the various European bodies, have been largely dismissed as superficial and ineffective imitations of the national ones. However, anthropological and sociological approaches have shown how policies in general, and cultural policies in particular, are key technologies of subjectivization: ‘[P]olicy increasingly shapes the way individuals construct themselves as subjects. . . . Changing styles and systems of governance are reconfiguring the relationship between individual and society’ (Shore and Wright, 1997: 4–5). This perspective focuses on the symbolic, diffuse impact of policy, conceived as its bearing on people’s self-understanding, whereby governance too is partly redefined to refer to the more complex processes by which policies not only impose conditions, as if from ‘outside’ or ‘above’, but influence people’s indigenous norms of conduct so that they themselves contribute, not necessarily consciously, to a government’s model of social order. (ibid.: 6) This applies to cultural policies in particular, as the fostering of specific ‘cultural’ identities, which are instrumental to the creation of fully socialized citizens, is one of their objectives (Miller and Yudice, 2002). The recent addition of cultural and so-called symbolic initiatives by European organizations, no matter how apparently cosmetic, should at least be considered in this light too, as indeed the promoters of this approach have been doing since the 1990s (see, in particular, Shore, 1993, 2000; for more details see chapter 2). As we shall see when we turn to official discourse and the interpretations and uses it stimulates, the minutiae of cultural policy-making are never far removed from grandiose discourses on European identity. How the gap is overcome, rhetorically and in practice, provides a strategic viewpoint for analysis. The national solution to the dilemmas of cultural policies is the obvious term of reference, state protection and promotion of a national culture having been part and parcel of the ‘modern state as educator’.2 However, what was a useful heuristic device among others has tended to become a normative comparison with the nation-state that has, more generally, haunted Europeanization, in practice as well as theory. So, as the national cultural space has been (imagined as) given by a perfect homology between institution and individuals, a binary correspondence

Introduction 5

of territory and peoplehood, space and culture (Calhoun, 1994), these are the characters that have been sought to establish the existence, or otherwise, of a European cultural space. However, it is precisely in this normative comparison that such an approach can be criticized for that ‘methodological nationalism’ that recent sociological approaches to Europe have started to dismantle on the basis of theories of reflexive modernization and social constructivism, shifting the interest to cultural identities and having progressively redefined them in equally reflexive, constructivist terms (Beck and Grande, 2007). The ‘European cultural space’ may therefore require new ways to think of spatiality in its connection to culture and identity formation (Robins, 1999; McNeill, 2004). This is the aim of my focus on a more encompassing notion of European cultural identity.3 This is conceived here as both collective and individual, as it contains the two dimensions in which the process of social construction of reality crystallizes: objectified shared (public and collective) understandings of what it means, in this case, to be European, and forms of individual self-understanding, developed through interiorization (and exteriorization) of those meanings and necessary to the latter’s (re)production. So we talk of cultural identity when there are narratives and practices of subjectivization that at the same time create manageable individuals and give them a subjectivity capable of active resistance and interpretation. If we only concentrate on the institutional collective narratives and practices we see static objectivization only and miss the dialectic and active dimensions of identity (which is why, for the fathers of constructivism, collective identity only makes sense as a typology of individual identities; see Berger and Luchmann, 1966). Moreover, the nature of what is really shared as far as communitymaking narratives are concerned also needs attention. In a recent and lucid contribution, Richard Jenkins (2008) recalled for Europe what has been more generally noted for the symbolic, or cultural, construction of collective identifications: what is shared in symbols is form rather than content, which allows a sense of belonging to develop even without consensus, as precise meanings remain implicit and assembled in the polysemy and ambiguity of symbols (Cohen, 1985). Drawing on Durkheim (1912), David Kertzer also noted how ‘rituals build solidarity without requiring the sharing of beliefs. Solidarity is produced by people acting together, not by people thinking together’ (Kertzer, 1988: 76). According to Jenkins, the point is how such tacit, axiomatic integration can work in such a self-conscious, explicit project as Europeanization, which is why he calls for more understanding of the latter’s polysemy

6

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and complexity with a more ‘interpretive’ attitude, rather than one assuming it as lacking in comparison to more substantial, consensual meanings, and therefore doomed to failure and crisis (Jenkins, 2008: 172–3). Europe’s ‘ambiguity’ may be critical without being pathological and ever-changing as a permanent condition. Indeed, if collective identities have always been ‘loosely specified constructions’, this has today become much more explicit. Although this cannot be said to be uniformly the case at general public and political levels (and is certainly not unchallenged in academe either), Europeanization provides a particularly salient example of this situation. Given the historical and intellectual context, European institutions and other ‘agents of consciousness’ (Shore, 2000: 26–7) ‘must create identifications at a time when the epic form of belonging is dubious as a viable political project. Durable versions of peoplehood may no longer be possible to organise . . . as though individuals were merely a function of the plot assigned to them by their national fate’ (Borneman and Fowler, 1997: 492; see also Bhabha, 1990: 291–322). Whether this is seen as impeding the emergence of a European identity as such is an open question. For some it seems rather to promote the idea that European identity could be a kind of intermediate phase towards more global, cosmopolitan, even utopian, allegiances (Bauman, 2004); for others it will simply remain an empty signifier with many meanings and little significance – which brings us back to what we expect shared culture, or even shared meanings, to be and to do, and of Europe as a particularly good case to explore this issue that goes beyond it.

2 Researching Europeans: a note on method and available evidence As ‘European identity’ began to feature on the agenda of social scientists, increasingly replacing ‘integration’ as its main keyword, it is possible to argue that it opened the way for the greater relevance of sociology in European studies (see Rumford, 2009). However, theories of European identity have so far been more successful in showing the inadequacies of previous models of modern multiple identities – concentric, pyramidal, hyphenated, nested, etc. – than in achieving a new one.4 As a result, empirical research in this area often produces contrasting or inconclusive results: large-scale quantitative research tends to fall back, explicitly or implicitly, on previous models’ hypotheses; qualitative research to remain at a preliminary and exploratory stage. Within the latter, the most insightful and influential endeavours have been

Introduction 7

those applying an ethnographic approach that, as well as being ‘qualitative’ in its interpretive and inductive outlook, is able, thanks to the in-depth, long-term acquaintance with its object and its flexible incorporation of a variety of methods, ‘[f]irst to study social action in situ and from a personal yet cultural perspective. . . . Second, to attempt a cultural understanding (and from there an explanation) of the social, semantic, and cognitive worlds inhabited by those who constitute the subjects of our study’ (Shore, 2000: 7). In other words, to approach the type of naturally occurring data that are the ideal goal of qualitative research, especially when dealing with the delicate issues of identity (Silverman, 2001; see also Denzin and Lincoln, 1994; Yin, 1994; Adams, 1999; Coffey, 1999; Gans, 1999). Research based on participant observation at EU institutions has been particularly influential in this respect (Abélès and Bellier, 1996; McDonald, 1996; Bellier and Wilson, 2000; Shore, 2000; see also Zabuski, 1995). This has been path-breaking in many senses, and research of this type has tended to focus on ‘professional’ Europeans: EU and other European organizations’ officials studied in their ‘European’ centres in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg (for a recent incarnation of this, see Siapera, 2004, on journalist correspondents from Brussels on the EU). So, one finds that the bulk of research on European identity falls into two extremes, either large-scale surveys that try to measure mass, widespread European identity, or fieldwork research within Euro-elites to understand it at the centre. Among the latter, Cris Shore’s influential conclusion is that, in order to promote European identity, the relevant institutions hold a Eurocentric, functionalist, elite definition of culture, with ‘the tendency among EU officials to promote oversimplified, consensual models of culture and identity’ (Shore, 2000: 24). Shore deploys his ideology critique by observing how the motto ‘unity in diversity’ simply reveals a rhetorical escamotage, which is either totally ineffective because its symbols are empty compared to the national ones, or actually harbour centralizing intentions, where in an idealized model of nested identities, the ‘higher’ European level will ultimately prevail (see also Grillo, 2007). Quantitative studies – the majority of which are based on Eurobarometer surveys, which for Shore are themselves one of the means of making Europeans – in a sense confirm this. Their results are never clear-cut, and are sometimes conflicting, but one of the clearer correlations is that between having ‘European experiences’ (travelling, studying, living in another European country) and an increased sense of being European (Immerfall, 2009); whilst living in ‘border communities’ does not seem to have a similar effect (Meinhof, 2004). This partly justifies studying Euro-elites as a kind of

8

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‘vanguard’ of European identity. However, this may be particularly misleading because – as the much quoted and influential multidisciplinary collective effort to empirically ground the debate on European identity, led by Hermann, Risse and Brewer (2004), concludes – ‘zero-sum relationships and potential conflicts between European and national identities are represented in this book only in cases focusing on professionals working in Brussels . . . . However, the other chapters in this book show little evidence of a zero-sum relationship between European and other identities’ (Risse, 2004: 251). This conclusion immediately calls for better models to understand how these multiple identities actually combine. Notwithstanding somewhat contrasting results when it comes to single factors and correlations, these recent empirical findings on European identity point to the fact that the relevance of Europe in people’s identity is not related to a decline of national identities, nor is it part of a zero-sum game with other allegiances, both elite and ‘popular’. Given the option, in surveys people increasingly choose multiple identifications; however, a satisfactory model with which to interpret them is still lacking. For example, building on similar findings, a study of European identity as seen by Edinburgh’s youth concludes by identifying this lack: ‘[m]uch simplification is required to describe any of them [people identifying themselves as Europeans] as having local, national and European identities that are nested like Russian dolls. Even the more fluid imagery of ingredients folded into each may be too static’ (Grundy and Jamieson, 2007: 675). Moreover, whilst complex, mobile identities are not the province of elites, elites in turn – as recent research on the experience of expatriates and professionals working in Europe shows – are themselves facing more difficulties in their mobile lives than the supporters of the theories on mobility as a key factor of Europeanization envisage (O’Reilly, 2007; Favell, 2008). So, in looking for my cases and methodology to study European identity, I had the models of fieldwork research on Euro-elites that inspired both an approach and the potential to try it in a slightly different direction; that is, to do fieldwork research to interpret European identity, but looking out from the centre, and away from EU bureaucrats and the like, in search of how institutional narratives and practices are interpreted by those intended as their recipients. For me this was not only stimulated by the practical consideration of distinguishing my own work, but it also had theoretical and methodological underpinnings. Methodologically, it seemed to me that an element of what has recently come to be called ‘methodological nationalism’ is contained in the idea that, by looking at the centre and major actors, we will also understand the periphery and

Introduction 9

have a sufficiently exhaustive view of the agencies involved (centre and periphery are, of course, terms we use for want of better ones). This was also related to a theoretical consideration: the assumption that ‘subjects’ are passive recipients of narratives, frames and discourses that simply trickle down on them seemed also to be partly implied in the idea of studying Euro-elites as a kind of avant-garde for identities, which would then be disseminated at the general level.5 Whilst I wanted to keep the interpretive, inductive outlook and the fieldwork strategy that only a well-delimited case study can provide, I also wanted to reach beyond the ‘centre’, beyond Brussels and Euro-elites, and give voice to some ‘lay’ Europeans, who had otherwise almost exclusively been reached through surveys. What I needed was some kind of ‘concentrated’ version of Europe, that is, a case of diffuse but direct contact with identitybuilding narratives and policies. So, in order to research the Europeans, I decided to concentrate on those initiatives that quite explicitly want to ‘make’ them and that, being implemented locally, provided the case studies I was looking for. My point was that a proper consideration of what ‘making the Europeans’ means implied analysing the policies, not only from the point of view of their creators, but also from the point of view of their recipients, without assuming them to be passive. I also wanted to see how the type of policy, or the style of the imagination if you like, affected the type of identity that policy-makers could try to spread and the type of resistance and interpretations, imaginations and repertoires, open to recipients. So, although clearly separated in time and object, the two case studies in this book have both been chosen because they are informed by an explicit rhetoric of European identity and are implemented locally; the European City/Capital of Culture (ECOC) and the European Landscape Convention (ELC) provide access to interpretations of Europe away from the European élites and centres. To study their discursive and practical field, the interpretations and uses they enable and frame among their recipients provide a unique viewpoint on how Europe represents itself and is experienced by Europeans. More specifically, within the ECOC programme a thematization of the very definition of culture – high or low, restricted or anthropological, pure or ‘creolized’ – reflects the theoretical debates mentioned, providing empirical evidence with which to discuss them. The ELC adds a further, fundamental element: dealing with landscape, it brings together culture and nature, and therefore policies traditionally aimed at both formatting compliant, fully socialized (and cultivated) citizens and at dealing with their ‘survival units’, the contexts perceived as relevant for physical survival and well-being.

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Becoming Europeans

As within globalization, cultural and natural units become increasingly contested, both by continuous enlargement and by displacement and fragmentation, their position becomes strategic. In this scenario, Europeanization, presented alternatively as an instance of globalization and a means of taming it, is one of the principal arenas. Therefore, together, the case studies proposed provide a key perspective to question policy as a means of governance and, more specifically, the conceptual and practical map through which a European subjectivity is taking shape. The two topics are united, not only as specifications and case studies around the same issues and questions, but also by the way I went about trying to answer them. My questions are qualitative, as are my methods (and answers). As a consequence, I make no claim to generalization of my data in terms of the diffusion and distribution of European identity: my aim is not to measure it, but to interpret it and show its relevance (Rabinow and Sullivan, 1977; Hammersley, 1990). For both case studies, given the context in which I was carrying them out, I was able to spend long periods in the field – more concentrated in the case of the ECOC, more intermittent in the case of the ELC. In both cases, participant observation was essential, the central point for accessing other types of data, such as documents and, in particular, formal interviews, of which I conducted nearly 60 (half for each case study; see the relevant chapters for more details on the data), with a wide typology of key informants recruited during the fieldwork. The latter took two slightly different forms in the two projects. For the ECOC, one could say that it was mostly Europe that came to me; I did travel to some of the nine cities sharing the title of ECOC in 2000 on which my research focused, but mostly I could follow European events and interview people from all of them from the Italian one, Bologna, on a continuous basis. In the other case, I participated in ELC-related events and followed the co-operation projects it stimulated. Subjects in Italy, France and the UK have been particularly active, especially initially, so initiatives coming from them are also central to my case. However, I have tried to reflect, especially in formal interviews, the wide spectrum of national, disciplinary and professional backgrounds of people participating in this European scene. Most interviewees gave me permission to give their names, but some did not, not only because ‘your questions are political’ but also because their answers were given from a personal point of view rather than as representatives of an organization. This suited me well, as I was trying precisely to go beyond official, institutional representations and to extrapolate from apparently merely technical issues the deeper, cultural (and thus also political) relevance.6

Introduction 11

3 Plan of the book The book is organized in three parts. Part I is dedicated to the wider theoretical analysis of European cultural identity and cultural policies, following the outlook on cultural identity and Europeanization as briefly outlined in this Introduction. Parts II and III focus on two case studies: EU’s European City/Capital of Culture programme (ECOC) and COE’s European Landscape Convention (ELC) respectively. Part I, ‘Making the Europeans: Cultural Identity and Cultural Policy’, starts by reviewing the debate on European cultural identity. This chapter not only proposes an updated critical account of the state of the art of theoretical notions and academic debate, but also considers the institutional discourse of the EU and of the Council of Europe, identifying contrasts, cross-fertilizations and legitimization effects. This provides a fuller picture of contemporary ideas of European cultural identity and their practical import for current processes of Europeanization, as well as of the debate on new localisms and cultural clashes, globalization and the decline of homogeneous collective identities. Having circumscribed its object as the unravelling of European identity as an idea and an institutional project, the chapter then builds on a key distinction between theoretical/academic and institutional/official concepts. Whilst somewhat schematic as an analytical distinction, this is particularly useful here in highlighting relationships between the two. The aim is not to enter the philosophical debates on the ‘origin’ of an idea of Europe, but rather to consider these debates as far as they enter – mainly with a legitimating function – into the current formalization of European identity within institutional projects. This analysis prepares the ground for chapter 2, on how discourse turns into practices within cultural policies. The aim of chapter 2 is in fact to enter into the details of actual policies put forward to create what has been called lacking or dormant: a European society and its citizens, properly ‘formatted’ according to an annexed identity. Cultural policy is key in this respect, and its European articulation is particularly interesting precisely for the limitations and obstacles it has to face, being still mainly in the hands of the nation-states. A broad perspective and an account of the historical developments since the first flurry of European Communities and unification or integration projects characterize the chapter. This includes a critical presentation of the relevant data, using both official sources – such as Eurobarometer, EU and COE reports on programmes – and scholarly accounts. Here the guiding distinction is that between the main actors in the field: the European Community/Union and the Council

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of Europe. Their historical development, institutional workings and role are very different, though their competition has also created synergies, notably in the field of culture. Again, the analytical distinction highlights relationships, such as the role of think-tank which the COE has often played for the EU. This distinction also points to the necessity of considering what it omits: the chapter also analyses the so-called ‘grassroots’ agencies, that is the wealth of networks and private initiatives (among which, notably, is the European Cultural Foundation), whose stance with respect to the two main actors is revealing of the latter’s policy style, and of the spaces of resistance that it leaves open. The field that is thereby delineated highlights both the main institutions’ strategies and their constraints within wider trends in contemporary society. The chapter sketches the type of European cultural identity that is developing and how it is spreading, arguing that in-depth case studies of initiatives involving several types and levels of actors, and being implemented locally, such as the one proposed in Parts II and III, create the best vantage points. This leads to Part II, ‘Being and Becoming: the European Capitals of Culture’, which concentrates on the EU programme that most directly and exclusively acts as a symbolic policy aimed at building identity: namely, the European City (then Capital) of Culture programme. The case study is used as a representative example of the EU’s policy style in cultural matters and of its cultural politics, thus combining detailed analysis and relevance well beyond the programme itself. It draws on qualitative research techniques which have included extended participant observation, interviews and document analysis. Chapter 3 presents the policy and history of the programme, since its proposal in 1982 and inception in 1985, through to recent and future years. The implementation of the programme not only reflects a cultural map of Europe but also represents a reconceptualization of the cities involved as European. However, due to the programme’s minimal regulation (and minimal EU financing), this has resulted in an array of different approaches and contents from city to city. Yet it is precisely this diversity that makes them, allegedly, typically ‘European’: they are represented as an instance of what the ‘richness and diversity of the common cultural heritage of Europe’, as the official discourse goes, currently means to the Europeans. The chapter considers the context in which the ECOC have been normally studied, that is within studies of culture-led urban regeneration. It then shows how this exclusive concentration on the socio-economic impact on the cultural sector misses a key aspect of the programme – one that could help overcome some of the difficulties in measuring

Introduction 13

impact and interpreting diversity – that is, to consider it as part of a symbolic policy aimed at identity-building. Following the development of a policy that in 20 years has undergone several reforms and its implementation in the sequence of selected cities, the chapter foregrounds issues of how the loose ‘European’ frame is filled with contents at the local level, and how these two levels, as well as others (such as the national) interact. Chapter 4 further narrows the focus of analysis in order to deepen the understanding at the level of implementation of the policy, and so of its real effects, and the reactions it has stimulated in the individuals and groups involved. The chapter concentrates on the year 2000, which was also the focus of my fieldwork research. This year was in fact particularly relevant because nine cities shared the title: as a result they represented synchronically the usually diachronic exchange of the title between cities over the years, as well as making the European dimension a much more present element both in the reality and in the representation of the ECOC events. Extracts from interviews with members of staff, event curators and artists of the nine cities, an analysis of the cultural programmes as a whole, and of flagship projects in particular, will lead the reader into the multifaceted image depicted by cities called to create the ‘European cultural space of the year 2000’. Through this the chapter raises questions and proposes answers to the actual articulation of the common rhetoric of ‘unity in diversity’ as the key to European identity. This investigation continues in Part III, ‘Europe as Landscape: the European Landscape Convention’. This proposes a partly symmetrical analysis with respect to Part II, concentrating on the European Landscape Convention by the Council of Europe, in the framework of the COE’s much more fully cultural approach to Europeanization, and thus as representative of this other path to Europeanization. Part III also draws on qualitative research, comprising document analysis, participant observation (taking place mainly within European networks and pilot projects experimenting and implementing the ELC) and interviews with officials at several levels of landscape policy-making from the COE itself down to the regional and local level, and members of organized civil society. In particular, chapter 5 analyses the ELC rhetoric and policy indications. The ELC defines landscape as ‘an essential component of people’s surroundings, an expression of the diversity of their shared cultural and natural heritage, and a foundation of their identity’. Its rationale explicitly claims the existence of both a specifically European attitude to landscape as a cultural construct and of this attitude itself as

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being one of the main components of European identity, thus deserving to be fostered and protected. The discursive field generated by this new attempt at defining European identity thus provides a viewpoint on current representations of Europe and their use in its construction as an imagined community. The ELC presents itself as a dramatic shift in the approach to cultural and natural heritage, a shift from a monumentalist approach to a landscape approach, substituting the focus on preservation and outstanding value with a focus on access to a diverse experience and so to the everyday value and quality of life. A critical consideration of the ELC-implied assumptions and functions is the focus of this chapter, which traces its development from the first proposals in the early 1990s to the present, showing how the network of discourses crystallized in meetings, drafts and other conventions actually creates that social demand for intervention in the field to which the ELC claims to respond. Finally, chapter 6 explores how this narrative of European identity incorporated in the ELC and its field is used and interpreted, in practice, by people affected by these emerging policies. Key examples of European networks of co-operation and pilot actions of the implementation of the ELC across Europe are presented, taking into account the fact that implementation has so far mainly regarded the promotion of such international networks, transborder or more generally European collaborative projects and awareness-raising campaigns (not unlike COE and EU cultural policies as a whole). These are aimed not so much at reaching a common definition of landscape and a common policy, but rather at spreading a concern for landscape, regardless of the diversity of approaches and organizational patterns that may persist. This provides, from another angle, yet another actualization of the unity in diversity rhetoric, pointing to a new cultural and spatial logic informing identities. A brief Conclusion draws together the theoretical reflection and the parallel analyses of the case studies. On this basis, it will argue that Europe might have many meanings, as most recent theories and research advance, but that this does not imply that there is no significance. On the contrary, Europe draws its strength from this polysemy, which has allowed an incremental, polyvocal, continuous interpretive work. As the many voices of the interviewees show, European identity increasingly takes on a language of becoming, rather than of a stable and monolithic being, the implications of which demand attention. To see this, however, we need to look for Europeanization in the right direction, whilst also considering the cultural relevance of technical or

Introduction 15

‘creeping’ Europeanization, and the agency of those that are normally only considered as the recipients of policies (and of their implicit or explicit narratives). The European narrative of ‘unity in diversity’ – be it virtue or necessity – points to a new style in imagining a community, where change and diversity assume a different significance. This is not to take the institutional rhetoric at face value; it descends instead from how that narrative is translated in practice, far beyond the ‘default’ institutional meaning.


Part I Making the Europeans: Cultural Identity and Cultural Policy


1 Imagined Europe: Narratives of European Cultural Identity

Views on European identity abound and propose different classifications, implicitly or explicitly estimating its future. Not all of them are primarily concerned with contemporary institutional developments as either the main agency or context of that identity (for example, the literature on identity-building by the EU or in the EU), but most are. Even those contemporary studies which are not, and that pursue more comprehensive understandings of ‘Europeanness’ – either in time, as a history of ideas of Europe going back well beyond the post-Second World War period, or in space, considering Europe in geographical terms – cannot really be understood without any reference to that institutional context, which is also their own. As studies on Europe have flourished in parallel with the creation of the institutions that call themselves European, it makes sense sociologically to take that context into consideration. Since the Communities (now Union) dropped the adjective ‘economic’ and started to be known simply as European, they have completed their appropriation of the term and its polysemic connotations. Therefore, although the warnings against the confusion of discourses and myths of Europe with EU institution-building are relevant (García, 1993; Rumford 2009), a clear-cut distinction would be false; it is instead important to grant some theoretical scope for conceptualizing the link between them. Two corollaries follow. On the one hand, it means that regardless of what Europe is as an object of study, its relationship with current theories and practices of European integration will hardly be totally irrelevant (see section 1.1). On the other hand, one should not treat the two – Europe and European institutions, Europeanization and European integration – as coterminous. This is so not only because of the evoked assertion that Europe extends far beyond the institutional limits of the EU, but also because of an equally commonplace observation, not exclusive to Europe but 19

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easily overlooked, that even within the area they cover, European institutions do not coincide with the social, cultural and material realities of Europe, however we might want to define them (Burgess, 2002: 469). The best way to avoid both dangers is to thematize explicitly their relationship: European institutions might have appropriated the term and the symbols of Europe, but they are not the single author of the narratives in which it stands as a key element of self-understanding, or identity. A simple but clear example is the fact that, even at the institutional level, the role of the Council of Europe is often overlooked,1 even if from the beginning it has been a much broader and more humanistic enterprise, one that has often provided the evolving EU with narratives and symbols. Beyond institutional agency there is also the role of an increasing number of active subjects – networks, associations, individuals – that call themselves Europeans, drawing on institutions for symbolic (and often economic) resources and legitimation, but also acting as interpreters of their narratives. As the European narratives and symbols are particularly ‘empty’ or ‘ambiguous’, according to both critics and supporters, this interpretive work is particularly relevant. This is why, as a premise to a consideration of current academic and official narratives of European identity, it is important to include a rapid overview of Europe as both an idea and an unfolding institutional project, focusing on their relationship and context.

1.1 Europe as an idea and an institutional project The historian Hartmut Kaelble distinguishes two phases in the contemporary discourse on Europe in the social and human sciences: the first, the ‘classic’ one, from the end of the Second World War to the early 1960s, and the second, the period of renewed interest, starting at the end of the 1980s and continuing to this day. Whilst they share some themes and approaches, the two are separated not only by over twenty years of relative disinterest, but also, and more importantly, by the institutional changes which have occurred in the meantime (Kaelble, 1998). Indeed, in order to consider both phases, it is probably best to recall briefly that contemporary institutional projects of European integration originated as a reaction to the world wars, as the collective will to prevent the recurrence of similarly devastating conflicts. This had partly emerged after the First World War, but only truly materialized after the Second.2 It is indeed not by chance that the first European Communities – that is, the first areas of transferral of sovereignty from the national to the supranational level – concerned two economically

Narratives of European Cultural Identity

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as well as militarily key sectors, with the creation in 1951 of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). This is also confirmed by the creation in 1957 of the European Community of Atomic Energy (EURATOM), including the new power with a double face, civil and military, on the same path. At the same time as these sectoral projects (which have never been as exclusively technical as they sometimes present themselves in order not to stir up opposition), straightforward attempts at comprehensive integration were diverted to the creation of the Council of Europe in 1949, an institution based in Strasbourg working on an exclusively intergovernmental and consultative basis, from the beginning focusing on the ideal of a united Europe, especially with regard to social and cultural matters, precisely those that seemed impossible to put, at that stage, on a supranational agenda. Even if they share some of their founding fathers, and the same national representatives may find themselves attending the meetings of both, the European Communities and the Council of Europe rarely feature in the same texts. Notwithstanding – or maybe thanks to – this low public profile, the second has come to play an important role as a think-tank for the developing Communities, as we shall see later in this and in the following chapter. The stimuli for the second phase can be located in the fall of the Soviet Union and the related new geopolitical role of the EU, but also in the danger of economic marginality with respect to the United States and Japan within globalization (Kaelble, 1998). For the sake of brevity, we could say that what was once the spectre of war and its menace of physical destruction for the European nations is today globalization and the risk of the definitive loss of political as well as economic relevance. This time the institutional result lies in the ‘deepening and widening’ of the existing communities, that is, on the one hand, the extension of their activities to a number of fields previously not directly addressed (such as culture, on which this book concentrates, but also security and social policies among others), and on the other, the eastward enlargement of the EU. Studies from the 1950s and early 1960s accompanied the dawn of the first Communities, providing them with legitimation. They create a genre and even their object of study, by searching, cataloguing and putting into a unilinear narrative the several meanings attributed to ‘Europe’, not only by politicians and political scientists, but also by philosophers, poets and, more generally, intellectuals over a long time span. These reconstructions typically juxtapose the different meanings and the frequency of the term ‘Europe’ in the literature, across

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centuries, territories and disciplines, in order to create a (virtually) seamless account that leads from Antiquity in Greece (the ‘cradle of European civilization’) to – needless to say – the first European Communities. One of the first studies in this sense is the Italian historian Federico Chabod’s, who was the author of a series of articles and seminars starting in the 1940s, and collected in the volume Storia dell’idea d’Europa (1961), and who can be considered among the inventors of the genre (Woolf, 2002). According to Chabod, the key question is ‘how and when our ancestors have come to acquire consciousness of being Europeans’ (1961: 13, my translation). This is a key theme characterizing the analyses of the idea of Europe and aims at justifying the method based on the juxtaposition of concepts that are often very remote, practically and conceptually – such as the Greek myth of the abduction of Europa, the almost ubiquitous starting point, with the creation of modern political institutions. In analysing and classifying these classic studies3 the sociologist Richard Swedberg has traced 14 fundamental foundation stones which create today’s sanctioned history of the idea of Europe: etymologies of Europe, Europe as a geographical concept, the myth of Europa and the bull, Europe and medieval Christianity, Charlemagne as father of Europe, Europe in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century peace plans, the Enlightenment’s cosmopolitan Europe, Napoleon’s Europe, the European Concert, literary Europeanism, attempted unification in the interwar period, Hitler’s New Europe, federal ideas of Europe in Second World War resistance movements, and the creation and development of European contemporary institutions (Swedberg, 1994: 382). This is, in short, the canon in which scholars have looked for the embodiment of the idea of Europe in history. Europe is contemporaneously thematized as a place, a history, a concept and a subjectivity, as the many visual images of Europe clearly demonstrate, from the very long tradition of representations of the abduction of Europa to anthropomorphic maps, where the continent takes on the shape of a powerful queen (Wintle, 1996b; Passerini, 2002). In other words, Europe is given an historical continuity which, although created through the juxtaposition of discrete and heterogeneous elements, results in a teleological tension leading to modern European institutions. As a result, these are rooted in a much more distant, and as such authoritative, past that constitutes their genealogy. The interpretation according to which the birth of Europe as an idea and as an institutional reality are simultaneous is thus at the same time contradicted and confirmed: contradicted by the content of these


23

analyses, which show much deeper and stronger foundations than the modern origin of a united Europe; but confirmed by their own flourishing in parallel with the creation of the first institutions aspiring to, and using, the definition of European. The history of a European consciousness is increasingly written as a commentary on the development of European institutions, a tendency that will consolidate in the second phase, beginning in the late 1980s. The simultaneity of these ‘classics’ with the first institutional developments shows how problematic it is to dissociate the two. If, on the one hand, these histories reveal cultural roots that are easily overlooked in political analyses, on the other hand, they appear to be constructions as much as analyses of the idea of Europe: they are narrations, relevant for building shared understanding, with European institutions being, of course, one of the main interested parties. If this is so, the dilemma – who was born first, the idea of Europe or institutional integration? – is misplaced. The most plausible answer, integrating the different arguments that each side can advance without ever managing fully to undermine the other, is the one that probably disappoints supporters of both. That answer emerges from the observation that some more or less scattered fragments of several historical sedimentations of the idea of Europe are brought to light and re-functionalized – as sometimes happens with the semi-worked artefacts of earlier periods – when, in the wake of the first attempts at European integration, the need for legitimization to support the enterprise was felt. This is the relevant element that we need to concentrate on, this use as an instrument of legitimization, this re-functionalization (that is also, notably, a selection), and its particular modalities. This applies even more to the second phase, that of contemporary studies. If analyses elaborated in the 1950s and early 1960s were the expression of a context in which European institutions were still more an ideal than a reality, since the 1980s, in connection with a new phase in European integration after a period of stagnation in the previous decade, the politico-institutional situation is radically different. Contemporary studies are indeed both nearer to the institutions – which are now a reality – and more distant, precisely because the narrative is no longer linked to a dream that can be shaped at will and that can summon uncritical devotion, but has to deal with what has become of that dream as it became reality, prompting a certain critical distance. Moreover, as it gained more centrality and momentum, the debate on Europe has also become multidisciplinary and increasingly established within academic curricula. Historians are no longer dominating the scene; sociology and anthropology have become prominent. In fact, in this

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encompassing periodization, a disciplinary distinction corresponds to the temporal one, related also to the conditions stimulating researchers, so that contemporary developments made Europe interesting not only for a history of ideas, but also for politics, sociology, anthropology, and so on. This more recent vein, which turns to the previous one for its classics, is much more characterized by a problematization of the not obvious relationship between Europe and European institutions, something that can also be related to the increasing presence of sociological approaches investigating the socially constructed nature of both. We are still within this second phase and partly for this reason, partly because analyses now cover a multiplicity of disciplines, approaches and primary sources, it is difficult to include them in a single description or scheme. There is, however, a common distinctive feature that emerges from contemporary studies and distinguishes them from previous ones. This is a shift from ‘integration’, which was the main concern of the first period, searching for its rationale in a European ‘consciousness’, to the new keyword ‘identity’, which has replaced both integration and consciousness, contributing to the further overlapping of institutional and socio-cultural renderings of Europe.4 It is probably in the very disciplinary shift that part of this new focus should be identified, as social sciences have entered into this debate precisely at a moment when they were introducing identity as one of their main heuristic devices. Moreover, both integration and identity are not only analytical but also practical concepts, used for individual and institutional legitimation. What integration and identity share in their public use is an immediately (that is, unmediated, uninspected) positive connotation, beyond often strong controversies on the means to pursue them and even on their meaning, which remains (as charged symbols tend to) vague and ill defined. They may well owe their success to their vagueness (Kertzer, 1988). Integration had already substituted for the more compelling ‘unification’, adopted in the immediate postwar period: too direct, unification had soon been seen to elicit more opposition than support. Now, identity substitutes for integration, this time more as a gradual shift in attention than as a complete alternative, once more adding to the ambiguity and enhancing the capacity to inspire both contestation over its meaning and fundamental agreement over its desirability. Needless to say, new studies on the idea of Europe or theories of European integration keep being produced, however the dominant buzz-word, in academic and public discourse alike, is now identity (for a fuller discussion of this shift, its context and effects, see Stråth, 2000a; 2002). Even in their functional equivalence, identity and integration have very


25

different implications. Concentrating on European identity means – even if one is allegedly concentrating only on political identity governing affiliations and choices in the political arena – focusing on what holds Europe together in a more encompassing cultural sense, so that, explicitly or not, it is to Europe’s cultural dimension that the debate shifts.5 Making sense of the broad and growing debate on European cultural identity has thus become increasingly central.

1.2 European cultural identity: a review Although many models of European identity are being proposed, there are few attempts at comprehensive reviews and, within single positions, the theoretical choices and general model of identity are often left implicit and under-theorized.6 The debate on European identity has been as varied, and as analytically frustrating, as the one on identity in general. The scheme proposed here adopts a point of view which aims at being as inclusive as possible, presenting the different ways in which the relationship of Europe, culture and identity has been conceived. In a sense, what is proposed here is a meta-review: one that tries to individuate the forces defining the legitimate boundaries of what should be discussed when talking about European identity. As the scheme considers a vast field and draws parallels between analyses that are not on the same level, this will not be a detailed catalogue of every possible or actual position ever advanced, but rather a classification of the typical, or mainstream, combinations, the ones most commonly implicitly held, or explicitly criticized, with the addendum, therefore, that actual positions may show elements of more than one of the three main classifications here proposed, whose aim is to individuate the scope of variations by describing ‘ideal-typical’ positions. The tripartite scheme I am about to propose is inspired, for the reasons emerging in the previous section, by the link between discourses about European cultural identity and the recent history of theories and practices of European integration. With regard to the latter, we may briefly recall that the common version of the opposition between federalism and neofunctionalism7 (Spinelli, 1957; Bekemans, 1990) sees federalism as relying on radical political integration to create a supranational structure from the start, subsequently informing all other aspects (Brugmans, 1969). Instead, in European Studies, approaches under the label of neofunctionalism claim that political unification can only be the effect of gradual economic integration, which leads over time to unification in other fields, thanks to the so-called spill-over effect (Haas, 1958; George,

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1985). Neofunctionalism, the one to be translated into a concrete dominant politics, and leading to the creation of the economic and monetary union, has also shown its inner limits, precisely as the spill-over does not seem to lead in any substantial way from economic and monetary to political and, above all, cultural integration. It is in particular the assumption of instrumental allegiances, generated by the satisfaction of interests defined principally in economic terms within the theory of the spill-over, that exposes the limits of neofunctionalism. Being based on a vision of individuals as rational and interest-oriented, it fails to understand the issue of identity as the background to the creation of interests themselves (Pizzorno, 1983). Therefore, a third model (yet to be consolidated) works for the time being on the critique and synthesis of the previous two. This model revisits the identitarian and cultural dimension that neofunctionalism had underestimated in its emphasis on instrumental rationality, but without falling back into the essentialist approach of federalism. Current approaches of ‘multi-level governance’, in their effort to combine opposed needs and visions, as well as in their abandoning all-encompassing theories but not entirely a vision for the future, can be interpreted in this light. It is possible to draw a parallel between the articulation of these European integration theories and practices and the ways in which European identity has been conceived recently. The notions of what is essentially European implicit in the two rival models of European integration, federalism and neofunctionalism, as well as in the recent critique of both, show a correspondence with different approaches to European cultural identity. As a result, we can single out an approach enhancing the unity of Europe as a culture and identity and resonating with federalist claims, as well as another emphasizing its plurality, or diversity, which is more in tune with the neofunctionalist approach, and a third, not surprisingly after these premises, trying to find its unity in diversity. 1.2.1 Unity Federalism was inspired by belief in deep-rooted unity and a common destiny. This was sometimes called the European spirit (Jaspers, 1947), based on the legacy of Hellenic rationality and beauty, Roman law and institutions, and Judaeo-Christian ethics. This is notably the often quoted classic formulation of Denis de Rougemont in his major work (1966), which revealingly is presented not as a history of Europe, but as ‘a chronicle . . . of how men from the time of Homer to the present day have come to think of Europe as a cultural entity’ (ibid.: xi).


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De Rougemont quotes Paul Valéry, writing in 1922, as one of the first explicitly to point to these as the three fundamental sources of the European idea and the main components of what has become a consolidated canon: These, it seems to me, are the three essential conditions that define a true European, a man in whom the European mind can come to its full realization. Wherever the names of Caesar, Caius, Trajan, and Virgil, of Moses and St. Paul, and of Aristotle, Plato, and Euclid have had simultaneous meaning and authority, there is Europe. Every race and land that has been successively Romanized, Christianized, and, as regards the mind, disciplined by the Greeks, is absolutely European. (Valéry, quoted in Rougemont, 1961: 335) Generally a fourth element is added to the triad of justice, reason and charity, making reference to the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and thus to the modern rebirth of those ancient legacies, now integrated with humanism and often phrased in the general terms freedom, civilization, democracy and science (Couloubaritsis et al., 1993; Mikkeli, 1998). It is easy to see how these features of European tradition lead to very general formulations and claims; in particular, when the emphasis is on the fourth element, Europe and modernity become coterminous, and modernity itself is referred to as a metaphor of Europe (e.g. Heller, 1992). The following is a good rendering of this vision, which we find repeated in both classic and recent studies, in scholarly as well as more official contexts:8 A conventional image situates the beginning (the ‘cradle’) of European civilization in Greek antiquity, which produced the values of individual dignity and critical, independent thought. After that follows Roman civilization, in which legal thought is developed to impressive heights, and in the bosom of which a third tradition emerges: the tradition of Christianity, which specifically emphasizes community spirit. Some authors add a fourth tradition: the tradition of the Renaissance, Reason and Enlightenment, in which the secular ideals of rationalism and humanitarianism are developed. In this view, the cultural unity of Europe is the result of old, continual, successive and mingling cultural traditions, which together produced a unique amalgam and found their expression in, among other things,

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organized science, institutionalized protection of human rights and democratic political institutions. (Wilterdink, 1993: 121) Federalism was never directly translated into a strategy towards integration, but it was never totally extinguished either. Similarly, the underlying belief in the profound unity of European cultural identity that informs federalism is far from extinguished, even if it has also changed shape, being expressed more as an aspiration or challenge than as a description (Rijksbaron et al., 1987). Certainly, this perspective is not the dominant one; however, it is still significant. In its most general formulation, this view has been taken up from, and is still today partly a legacy of, classical sociology (itself a modern product, of course). Sociology’s founding fathers, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim in particular, had posed the problem of the specificity of the West, going back to medieval and ancient history to look for the specifically European origins of the fundamental forms of social organization or cultural systems, and notably to single out its role in the development of modernity’s characteristic institutions, from capitalism to the family. This is a genre that has continued to flourish – prominent examples might be the account of civilization itself as Western accomplishment (Elias, 1939) or, to choose a more specific example, the individuation of specifically European forms of the family (Laslett and Wall, 1972) – and to generate harsh critiques. Although a variety has been put forward, their common main argument is normally that to choose a core European tradition results in an arbitrary, ideological selection towards the inside (Delanty, 1995) and an imperialist, Eurocentric vision of the world towards the outside, possibly with a subtext of racial and cultural chauvinism, and essentialism.9 Europe creates itself by marginalizing its Others and easily forgets its dark side in order to stake a claim for the universalizable character of its good side (Said, 1978; Sträth, 2002b). The next step is obviously a self-appointed role in the civilizing mission of the world. It is in particular against the latter that a prominent and encompassing example of these critiques can be found in the recent work of the anthropologist Jack Goody, according to whom Europe has ‘stolen’ for itself achievements (e.g. capitalism, the nuclear family, rationality and law) by creating a false image of its Other (Goody, 2007). Goody’s programme is that of dismantling the myth of the superiority of Europe based on deep-seated cultural or institutional characters, starting from a reconsideration of Weber and the concept of Oriental society, through to specific comparisons of systems of knowledge, accounting,


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kinship: the idea is not to deny the relevance of the differences between the East and the West as much as to point to the fact that an alternative and equally relevant history can be told about their common heritage. As a result, the (partial) scholarly as well as political neglect of this alternative history is conceived as the product of the dangerous and misleading ideology of the uniqueness of the West. The fact that it appears so now that it has become increasingly untenable at the political and economic level is seen as proof that it was always more dependent on economic and political factors than on ‘deep-seated’ cultural characters (see also Goody, 2004; 2005). In light of these critiques, it is obvious that the simple version of this approach, especially when phrased in terms reminiscent of the European superiority complex, is not defensible in the contemporary intellectual field. As mentioned, there are structural reasons as well: the effects of decolonization and loss of geopolitical centrality, the East– West division of Europe and its slow reunification and, probably above all, globalization and migration, have brought the issue of diversity to the fore (Kaelble, 2005). However, it is precisely some of the ideas of cultural globalization theory that applied to Europe can sustain a renewed version of the approach stressing its unity. Advanced capitalism brings about unifying processes that not only globalize the scope of capitalist economy, but challenge established cultural fault-lines, notably the national ones, and can thus function to support more encompassing forms of unity, such as a European one, even if in the form of procedural ‘third cultures’ (Featherstone, 1993). Here, the unity of European culture is seen not so much in the past and myths, as projected into the future as the result of an ‘objective’ acting of Europe as a singular subject (Duroselle, 1990). In this shift, however, with its concessions to a developmental vision (the idea that unity can be and is created, rather than being ‘primordial’), this position starts to resemble the one that tends to focus on Europe’s basic plurality, and to show a growing distance from the model of federalism towards its main rival, neofunctionalism. Implied in this shift, there is one in the very definition of what cultural identity is. That is, from an essentialist view of identity as given by collective identifications with specific cultural contents that characterize given values, habits, territories and peoples, homogeneously shared, and effectively fashioned on the model of the nation, to ‘evolutionary social processes underlying collective identity formation in Europe’ (Spohn, 2005: 2), the fostering of which is at the basis of the vision of European societies typical of neofunctionalism.

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1.2.2 Diversity A radical critique of the old as well as the renewed version of European cultural identity as unity lies at the heart of the approach stressing its plurality, or, as is increasingly phrased in opposition to the previous one, diversity. This covers the approaches for which there is no such thing as a European culture; there are instead many European cultures and identities (Macdonald, 1993; Gowland et al., 1995; Shelley et al., 1995). This position was rare in the first wave of European studies, and tendentially developed more recently (Kaelble, 1998). Here, narratives of Europe ‘from Homer to the EU’ are rejected as offensive, and rather suspect, myths that have the additional flaw of being exclusively intellectual and not prevalent among the ‘common’ people. It is not so much the existence of any shared elements that is rejected, as the idea that these could amount to a distinctive and unitary culture, given that there are as many, and maybe more, elements of diversity. There might be a general acceptance of the existence of some shared values; however, these tend to be considered universal rather than exclusively European, such as human rights and democratic principles. Here the approach may appear to coincide with the previous one, equally emphasizing these values; however, there is a fundamental difference: in the approaches stressing unity they are appropriated as European, here, partly as a reaction to critiques of Eurocentrism, they are globalized.10 Notably, the position of the scholar of nationalism, Anthony Smith – and of organic or cultural primordialists in general (Hedetoft, 1999) – is often quoted and has been very influential in setting the very terms of the debate. Smith sees national identity as deeply rooted in common memories and myths, a shared culture, a sense of being one people on one territory, with a common destiny and, thus, the same rights and duties. This is national identity at the collective level, whilst Smith allows for the fact that, at the individual level and especially in the contemporary world, individuals hold multiple allegiances, which can remain fluid and non-conflictual. Instead, collective identities, like the national one, might be multidimensional (and so able to be grafted onto several aspects of individual lives), but not multiple, they need to be pervasive and persistent. Given this model, and on the basis of an overview of elements that might form a European identity, Smith famously concluded that it is, at worst, ‘a patchwork, memoryless scientific “culture” held together solely by the political will and economic interests’ (Smith, 1992: 78); and, at best, a ‘family of cultures’. In any case, it would hardly be sufficient to support the development of a layer of collective identity superimposed on the multiplicity of national ones, and best thought of


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as a kind of space favourable to the diffusion and reciprocal, although uneven, exchange of different cultural traditions. Smith’s position can be seen as one extreme of a range of variations that posit European unity as either nonexistent, not yet existing but desirable and possibly imminent, or undesirable. They all share the view that, for the time being at least, culture cannot be the ‘glue’ that binds European integration; on the contrary, the very idea of a European identity is sometimes presented as detrimental because it would endanger the cultural diversity cited as the distinguishing feature of Europe. Besides, a further theme can be found at least since Aron’s rejoinder that ‘The European idea is empty . . . . It was created by intellectuals, and that fact accounts for its genuine appeal to the mind and its feeble appeal to the heart’ (1954: 316). In other words, it is believed that if there might be elements and sentiments of unity at the level of elites and elite culture, this is not the case at the diffuse, popular level, and that European identity could not become as emotionally charged as the national ones (this is also a theme in Anderson, 1983: 53; Delanty, 1995). Others, going back to a common sociological distinction between community- and society-like collectivities, have seen an even more far-reaching opposition between the nation, culture, pre-modernity and emotions on the one hand, and supranational institutions, civilization, modernity and rationality on the other (Weiler, 1997: 511). As in the case of the community/society distinction, the explicit upholding of the latter often masks a nostalgic looking back to the former. In practical terms, these ideas correspond to a sceptical attitude to the possible role of European institutions for culture: these should be a kind of institutional shelter to protect, valorize and diffuse knowledge about the plurality of European cultures, as well as for democratic principles and human rights. In other words, with respect to those that focus on the unity of European culture, this approach is more minimalist so to speak, as it tends to argue for a limited role for European institutions, and in particular one clearly delimited to selected, ‘functional’ sectors. Therefore, it shows a ‘family resemblance’ with neofunctionalism (or even, in the most ‘radical’ versions, with so-called realist theories of integration, sometimes labelled intergovernmental or pluralist), where Europeanization is seen as the result of an international functional order. As neofunctionalism believes in the spill-over effects of gradual integration for the creation of a united Europe, so the idea of Europe as characterized mainly by diversity supports ‘technical’ (that is, allegedly objective) solutions that acknowledge the plurality of European traditions, favouring collaboration and co-operation across them. Some

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versions of this position see not so much a deep unity but more a shared space as gradually emerging. The German sociologist Rainer Lepsius (in line with an even less invasive confederational-intergovernmentalist model of integration), for instance, believes that the national states are and will remain at the basis of cultural solidarities, as well as of the political process, in Europe, so that a European identity is seen as at best a weak addendum to strong national identities. Given the conditions of cultural, political and social heterogeneity in Europe, the development of a progressively more homogeneous identity should not be expected, as was the case with nineteenth-century state-building. According to Lepsius, this implies that there is not yet a European identity, and that national identities are likely to remain dominant. Therefore, the cultural integration of Europe is primarily a task of ‘translation’, both literally and metaphorically (Lepsius, 2001; see also Münch, 1993). Given the problematic role of culture, some authors have started to apply a distinction to Europe, which once again is taken from the nation-state configuration, between cultural and civic forms of affiliation. In these terms, there can only be a European identity if it does not aspire to be cultural – based on shared traditions that should still reside in the nation, whose character as primary, authentic and essentialist is not challenged – but civic, based on a ‘social contract’ that can be usefully transferred to the European supranational level. Thus the latter is more often described as a set of political allegiances conceived in more rationalistic and instrumental terms (Delanty, 1995; Habermas, 1996; Weiler, 1997).11 Here, very influential views have become progressively characterized as a post-national advocacy of civic community, in particular that of Jürgen Habermas, which has recently come to support the idea of a European democratic identity, based on a shared political culture – shared formal norms – whilst at the same time accepting that European cultures are plural and specific. The emphasis is not so much on common universal and substantial moral values, as on the sharing of legal procedures, the only ones for which agreement in multicultural societies is seen as possible. This is a post-national society based on a limited ‘constitutional patriotism’ (hence also the advocacy of a European constitution; see Habermas, 2004). This can be either a form of liberalism, based on respect for others, or, as with Habermas, it can try to develop a new model based on criticism and reflexivity. Increasingly, this is taking the form of a defence of cosmopolitan order as the basis for international law, of which Europe could be an exemplar given its difficult, but allegedly successful form of peaceful integration. European


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identity becomes linked to cosmopolitanism, and thus as a narrative emerging out of competing cultural repertoires: As a cosmopolitan societal identity, European identity is a form of post-national self-understanding that expresses itself within, as much as beyond national identities. Post-national and cosmopolitan currents are evident within national identities and are given cultural form by what we have been calling new European repertoires of evaluation. (Delanty and Rumford, 2005: 56) The recent renewed interest in cosmopolitanism has also been applied to an idea of a ‘cosmopolitan Europe’ which is gaining momentum and is being held by key contemporary thinkers (see Beck and Grande, 2007). However, going back to the cultural/civic distinction at the basis of this renewed vision of European identity characterized by diversity, it is possible to point out critically that the allegedly culture-free, technical or neutral approach ends where the question of what to count as prepolitical shared tradition and what to include in the civic community emerges. The problem of the first approach – what to include – is here only displaced. National identity as the standard of a cultural community is the usual assumption, but the one that most often encounters critiques, as suggested by the literature on the constructed character of the nation itself (Gellner, 1988). In this respect it is relevant to note that as the renewed version of Europe as unity stresses cultural globalization, the renewed version of Europe as diversity responds by stressing the recent phenomenon of nationalist or ethnic recrudescence. Under globalization, a common view holds, reactions tend to produce nostalgia for pure identities, and thus, at the diffuse level, the idea that identities are something to be preserved rather than reinterpreted, bounded rather than open (Morley and Robins, 1995: 122). Stressing the diversity within Europe is thus also part of this defensive stance, which tends to go back to national identities as its primary model. In other terms, the first type of accounts of European cultural identity as unity had a clear affinity for a sort of Europeanist essentialism, best expressed in federalism. As for this second category stressing Europe’s diversity, and broadly speaking having family resemblances with neofunctionalist theories of integration, both paradigms of essentialism and constructivism may lie at its basis. Europe as diversity may be, on the one hand, the result of a belief in the primordial, essential nature of national identity, or, on the other, of the conviction that a space of civic

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co-operation within the cultural diversity can be constructed. However, it is not only by chance or irony that these two conflicting approaches should find themselves next to each other: as Martin Kohli has effectively put it, in these matters, ‘even the macro-level constructivists tend to be micro-level essentialists: they seem to imply that in successful nations people have a strong feeling of natural belonging’ (2000: 118). The fact that this will never happen for Europe is still meant only in terms of a lack when compared to the only, right, way to construct ‘strong’ collective identities, the national one, and that these are a necessary functional precondition is an assumption that few challenge (for a recent example, see Kantner, 2006).

1.2.3 Unity in diversity As we have seen, approaches presented thus far – stressing their contrasts for the sake of analysis – soon face theoretical as well as empirical contradictions, both as models of cultural identity and as support for theories of integration. This is true both for the older, purer versions and for the attempts to renew them, considering the contemporary challenges to collective identities, applying respectively theories of cultural globalization – where the unity of European culture would be part of a more global process – or those, on the contrary, stressing phenomena of re-emergent nationalisms. It is the connection between Europeanization and globalization that brings contradictions to the surface. New localisms and globalization can both be seen as characteristic, if contradictory, features of our world and demand an approach that can consider them together (Scott, 1998). What is specifically European, as opposed to cosmopolitan, if we espouse cultural globalization? Why should the national level be the unit of analysis when both smaller and larger, cross-cutting allegiances are also emerging? Both the approaches described above, especially in their mainstream version, are liable to criticisms due to a lack of reflexivity regarding their own categories. Both, critics point out, are only convincing in part as narratives, and are in need of integration. So far the way out of this impasse has not been very imaginative, representing more a combined critique, still struggling to find a new language and original synthesis. In fact, here we find positions sharing the view that European cultural identity can be seen as unity in diversity. At one level, this view exists in recent conceptualizations of the European dimension as a mediating instance between the globalscale and local allegiances (Lenoble and Dewandre, 1992). These are


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no longer seen as opposite phenomena, but as the expression of the complexity of the modern world, in which different layers of allegiance constitute what is commonly called the multiple identity of the contemporary subject, with the important specification that this is now recognized not only at the individual level but also in its impact on collective allegiances. As such, unity in diversity resonates also with the political spirit of the age, looking for viable ways to combine difference with equality (see in particular Touraine, 1997) and to go beyond a too clear-cut distinction between civic and cultural identities at the basis of some of the approaches considered earlier and that, as cultural relativism also entered the hitherto universalistic discourse of rights, has become problematic. Indeed, within this unity in diversity position, variations depend mostly on the notion of diversity, which has been at the centre of major theoretical shifts, so that it can hardly be assigned a marginal role (Christiansen and Hedetoft, 2004; Isar, 2006). ‘Diversity’ is a multifaceted term, which can range from division, to difference, to plurality, and can thus be seen as a threat, a limit or an asset. It is diversity when conceived as plurality and so as an asset that best represents unity in diversity: even if other notions are still present, this is the one that is gaining ground at all levels: theoretical, political and public. In a sense unity in diversity combines a degree of the pragmatism of neofunctionalism, in its recognition of the ‘fact’ of diversity, but also a hint of federalism’s utopianism in its attempt to make diversity an asset, almost by will so to speak. In fact, pointing to the post-liberal climate within which the unity in diversity solution took off, in this case too we can draw a parallel with European integration theories and practices, engaged in the attempts to overcome the limits shown by both federalism and neofunctionalism – the limits of (essentialist) unity and (liberal) diversity – so that they too are moving towards a (reflexive) unity in diversity. Indeed, the mainstream multi-level governance approach to European integration renounces an all-inclusive theory for a more ‘practical’ stance, and emphasizes plurality, continuous negotiation and the intersection of levels and claims, without attempting their homogenization. However, especially as it becomes more and more enshrined in the official discourse of contemporary institutions (as we shall see in the next section), unity in diversity attracts critiques.12 Its ambiguity as a solution is the major target, equated as it is with emptiness, an inconsequential celebration of peaceful intercultural understanding, rendered even more irrelevant by the limitations within the borders of Europe, and most likely of a restricted elite within it. If it is true that the

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available cultural identities are nowadays multiple as the postmodern vulgata has imposed (Eagleton, 1996), the argument goes, it is also true that just to name them is not an explanation, and that there is no guarantee that they will be harmoniously nested either. As we have seen in sections 1.2.1 and 1.2.2, theories of European identity have so far been more successful in showing the inadequacies of previous models of modern multiple (collective) identities – concentric/nested, hyphenated/entangled, mixed/hybrid) – than in formulating new ones. As a result the concept of multiple identity often remains optimistically undifferentiated, and the suspicion of the reproduction of a hierarchy of allegiances, of which the European would represent the more advanced and progressive, is difficult to dispel. Unity in diversity is viewed not only as a formal solution with no substance, a superficial if successful slogan, but also as containing, if anything, a thinly veiled renewed Eurocentric triumphalism (Shore, 2000). This danger is particularly evident to some scholars, historians in particular, sensitive to the connotation of the nineteenth-century antecedent of the contemporary rhetoric of unity in diversity. In Europe the latter has a philosophical tradition that can be traced back to nineteenth-century Romantic nationalism as it combined with the Enlightenment’s pan-Europeanism. In this first instance it was basically the legitimating rhetoric of European superiority and its civilizing mission, cloaking with universal or cosmopolitan overtones what were actually national imperialist designs; as such it has been widely criticized. Michael Herzfeld, for example, sees in what he calls ‘diversity in unity’ a centuries-long ideology that has been appropriated by the national configuration, in particular by nineteenth-century ‘romantic statism’, because ‘it represented European identity as revealed through specific national identities. . . . At the level of the state and above, cultural differences were “European” and therefore good; below, they were anathema, inasmuch as they challenged the authority of the state’ (Herzfeld, 1987: 77). Notwithstanding the formula ‘unity in diversity’, in the end unity prevails, and it is easy to fall back to what we have here considered as the first position. Indeed nineteenth-century writers, exemplified by the French historian and politician François-Pierre Guizot, used the term to claim that Europe’s superiority was due to the variety of its national specifications and its plurality of guiding principles, compared to Oriental monolithic despotism (Wintle, 1996a). However, critical authors have reformulated unity in diversity in different terms that deserve consideration. In particular, Edgar Morin, in his much quoted Penser l’Europe (1987), states that Europe is


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characterized by its dialogic nature, that is by the combination of differences without homogenizing them, making this attitude towards difference the expression of unity. Diversity – or better the recognition of diversity – is a value, not only the basis for co-operation but an appreciated cultural feature in itself. This, says Morin, ‘is the difficulty of thinking Europe, above all this difficulty of thinking the singular in the plural, the plural in the singular: the unitas multiplex. It is at the same time the difficulty of thinking identity in non-identity’ (1987: 23–4). Conscious of the dangers inscribed in the formula and amply demonstrated in its earlier application, Morin stresses that unity in diversity must avoid the opposite dangers of abstract universalism (resulting in totalitarianism) and concrete singularity (seen as oppressive nationalism), however unlikely this might be. With its visionary engagement, Morin’s position comes to resemble more a philosophical normative theory than a sociological analysis, and has been criticized for this reason (see Hedetoft, 1999). Continuing an older philosophical tradition, this position evokes Gadamer’s claim that it is the dialectic of several dimensions and expressions of human creativity that characterizes Europe and its predisposition to harbour diversity within itself (Gadamer, 1985). In considering these alternative views it is important to note that among the founding fathers of sociology possibly the most relevant approach may be that of Georg Simmel, until the 1980s much neglected and since then progressively rediscovered. Simmel did indeed write specifically on Europe (1976, 2005), and for this reason some have seen him as the first sociologist of Europe (Lawrence, 1976; for a recent commentary, see Harrington, 2005). Georg Simmel views European identity as a mediation between the narrowness of nationalism and the abstraction of internationalism, between the realism of everyday compromise and pure ‘ideal’. Europe is best qualified in Simmel’s terms as an ‘idea’, that is, an altogether primary phenomenon not attainable by abstraction or accumulation – however late its appearance as a historical force. It does not exist inbetween individual nations, it exists beyond them, and this is perfectly compatible with any individual national life. (Simmel, 1976: 268) As a primary phenomenon, Europe does not enter into competition with national identity, but rather shows a different type of identity, one that is multifaceted and transversal, comprising encounters and mediation among individualities (personal, national, and so on) that are

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not subsumed by it. The reference to Simmel is also a reminder of the older, nihilistic tradition that stems from Friedrich Nietzsche – a strong influence on Simmel’s vision of Europe – and leads to Jacques Derrida’s defence of non-identity within identity. Rejecting both Eurocentrism and anti-Eurocentrism, monopolistic unification as well as dispersion, Derrida (building on Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Paul Valéry) sees Europe’s specificity in being constituted by its other (Derrida, 1991; see also Ricoeur, 1990; Habermas and Derrida, 2003). Or, to put it differently, Europe can find itself not in a given cultural content, but in its ‘eccentricity’, in its transformative ability, the ability to transform both itself and what it encounters to produce an always dynamic cultural form that is not challenged, but nurtured by its containing of alterity and derivativeness (Brague, 2002). Not dissimilar is the position held by the Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari, according to whom the characterizing feature of European identity, as with individual identity, is the struggle between irreducible components. Europe is an ‘absent homeland’, an ‘archipelago’ that can neither achieve nor renounce an aspiration to unity beyond a plurality of individualities (Cacciari, 1994; 1997). Although some of these highly theoretical speculations remain marginal, more mainstream social scientists have also followed this path and tried to sketch their own vision of Europe’s ‘unfinished adventure’ (Bauman, 2004) or of the ‘European dream’ (Rifkin, 2004) in similar terms. Once we start following these grand normative philosophical theories and sweeping social commentaries, it becomes difficult, as Delanty and Rumford affirm (quoting Morin and Gadamer), ‘to make theoretical sense of these salutary and lofty proclamations’ (Delanty and Rumford, 2005: 61). This is certainly true, but in a sense it is also misleading – true if one makes of unity in diversity and related proclamations an analytical tool, which therefore needs to be logically coherent and solid, free from contradiction (again, in logical/rational terms), methodologically generalizable (that is, used as a uniform instrument of measurement, an ideal-type in Weberian terms). Instead, that judgement does not apply if we try to make sociological sense of unity in diversity, that is – to paraphrase a famous comment – if as sociologists we do not ask ourselves whether unity in diversity is logically solid, but why it has been successful regardless. It is possible to move from the level of normative theory to the level of a sociological account of what this narrative of unity in diversity is called on to fulfil, looking for how it becomes a logic which guides practices and representations. To this end, the analysis of theoretical positions – which are too an expression of their times and may


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be more available than generally believed as building blocks for ‘lay’ interpretations – can only be a first step, integrated by an analysis of both concrete public and official discourse, as well as of interpretations by those who are meant as this discourse’s recipients, the becoming Europeans. This is the aim of what follows, in both the last section of this chapter’s analysis of official discourse, and then in the rest of the book.

1.3 European cultural identity in official discourse In official discourse, as recorded in treaties, conventions, declarations, as well as in communications, speeches and the like,13 we can find the shift that we noted in scholarly accounts from ‘integration’ to ‘identity’. We have to wait until the 1970s to find the term ‘identity’ used for the first time. Usually, the Declaration on European Identity, signed in Copenhagen in 1973 by the then nine EC member states, is taken as the starting point of official discourse on these matters. Clearly, as it presupposes a previous debate, it should be considered as an end point of a previous preparatory phase; however, it is true that this document marks the beginning of the public career of ‘European identity’ as the officially adopted legitimizing tool. If we look at the preceding period we see the search for a language that would give fresh impetus to a process of integration that had started to stagnate, due to its increasingly obvious lack of democratic legitimation, as well as to the negative economic conjuncture (the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreements in 1971, oil price increases in 1973 and more generally the end of the years of booming economies that had been steadily growing since the postwar reconstruction, with returning unemployment and stagnation; see Stråth, 2002). This made any steps forward difficult to make (de Witte, 1987). The problem of popular support for the European project had started to be felt, and the more general ambition of creating ‘a stronger union between the peoples of Europe’ – an expression that was included in Treaty preambles from the very first sectoral community, the ECSC, revealed that underneath the purely commercial agreement the vision of a ‘community of destiny’ had always been present (Laffan, 1996) – to be brought into full light. A feeling that something fundamental towards that end is still missing starts to spread and eventually becomes identified as a problem of identity – hence discourses and initiatives meant to create it or, better, to awaken it from its allegedly latent state. So if the early documents always spoke of the European peoples in the plural, this new phase requires the stronger impetus of a new, singular subject.

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The Declaration of Copenhagen, as it is also known, is thus a key document, even if its text, as many have observed, is far from enthusing or consensual (Passerini, 1998: 4–5), and it may well be no more than an ‘anodyne statement’ (Shore, 2000: 44), if not a ‘woolly and confusing text’ (de Witte, 1987: 135). Today, it is interesting especially for the differences that it reveals from more recent documents. The Declaration contains the idea of a civilizational identity (indeed, it uses the term ‘civilization’ generously and somewhat unreflexively, in a way that later documents do not), strongly emphasizing an overarching unity over national, ‘cultural’ differences. This is based on the unity of the then nine member states, as bearers of a responsibility towards the rest of the world given that civilizational heritage: The Nine member countries of the European Communities have decided that the time has come to draw up a document on the European Identity. This will enable them to achieve a better definition of the relations with other countries and of their responsibilities and the place which they occupy in world affairs. Clearly this is an official, external identity where unity overcomes plurality or diversity. It is above all a collective identity, modelled on the national type, which should work as a place-marker in the world order. Indeed, most of the text is concerned with establishing the type of external relationships of the Europe of the Nine, outlining a hierarchy of relations, extending from prominence of those with the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean basin, to progressively less prioritized ones with the Middle East and United States, then with Japan and Canada, followed by those with the Soviet Union, China and Asia in general, to conclude with Latin America and unspecified ‘less favoured peoples’. What emerges is clearly the difficulty of avoiding the contradictions of Eurocentrism, its resurfacing in the hierarchical vision of the relationship among countries, re-enacting the idea of Europe’s mission civilisatrice (Passerini, 1998). This Declaration was to remain a more or less isolated case. All its characterizing features have faded away rather quickly and such explicit calls for identity remain a rarity. When we encounter identity again, in the 1980s, it is a different identity, where ‘civilization’ is never mentioned: the focus has shifted from the collective to the individual, and from the external dimension articulating the national, European and world-wide, to an internal dimension articulating the European, national and local. As a result, from its previous position of dominance, unity is now only


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mentioned with diversity in the same breath. This can be traced back to the early discussions eventually leading to the Maastricht Treaty (or TEU) in the 1990s. In particular, the Solemn Declaration on the European Union of 1983 calls for steps to be taken ‘in order to affirm the awareness of a common cultural heritage as an element of the European identity’ towards the end of the ‘ever closer union among the peoples and Member States’: identity is now concerned with individual self-understanding (awareness) among the (different) peoples of Europe and not only as an affair concerning states, without reference to an overarching ‘European civilization’ made up of the sum of collective national identities. Rather than civilization, it is culture, and its plurality, that is now explicitly linked to identity. According to Bo Stråth, this has a clear historical explanation: The European identity, which in the early 1970s was designed for another role, first, to give the European Community new confidence and to redefine its role in the international order, then to support the Euro-corporatist arrangements, was transformed to support the connection of the local/regional small-scale level with the large-scale European framework, where the nation in some sense was by-passed. (Stråth, 2002: 390) This accounts for both the shift from unity to diversity and the related shift from a collective (‘corporatist’ in Stråth’s terms) identity, to an individual (liberal) identity, a shift that is also to be considered in the context of wider changes, from the 1970s to the 1980s, in the identity politics and theories of the times. These shifts are crystallized in the TEU, first signed in 1992. At the same time, the TEU marks the triumph, and the end, of the neofunctionalist agenda of European integration. In fact, its narrative of European identity is, on the one hand, in tune with the neofunctionalist preference for diversity, and, on the other, already opening the door to unity in diversity. Taken literally, the TEU is very cautious when it comes to identity, the term itself only appearing with reference to external identity. In particular, identity occurs in the Preamble, where, also drawing on the previous text of the Single European Act of 1987, it is stated that the identity and independence of Europe shall be increasingly protected by common security and defence policies, a concept further confirmed in Article B, which states that the Union aims to ‘assert its identity on the international scene’. However, beyond a literal analysis that would see the TEU as withdrawing from the discourse on

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identity (Boxhoorn, 1996), we can see in two of its major innovations – namely, the introduction of European citizenship and of a competence on culture – an attempt to create a bond between individuals and the European Union. The European Charter of Fundamental Rights, approved in 2000, can be read in the same light. As we shall consider in detail in chapter 2, which concentrates on the new cultural policy, the article on culture of the TEU is emblematic of this consolidation of the unity in diversity rhetoric – with the support of key figures such as two of the most influential presidents of the European commission, Jacques Delors and Romano Prodi (who wrote a defence of unity in diversity; see Prodi, 1999) – aiming as it does to promote ‘the flowering of the cultures of the member States, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore’ (TEU, art. 151). Since Maastricht, this formula has been elevated to the rank of official motto of the EU as united in diversity (adopted in 2000 by the European Parliament).14 Building on Stråth’s historical account, we could say that after the collective-corporatist identity of the 1970s, promoting unity, and the individual-liberal identity of the 1980s, based on diversity, the unity in diversity formula at the level of official discourse is an attempt to combine the two, maintaining the focus on individual identities, but trying also to integrate the social dimension, as well as the more obvious recognition of local, regional and national ‘levels’ as building blocks of a European dimension. Indeed, unity in diversity has also been used to address the dialectic between freedom and equality, becoming something like ‘equality in freedom’ (see the reference to Touraine, 1997, in section 1.2.3). In relation to a more general political and even philosophical shift which advocated a stronger role for diversity beyond liberal values (Delanty and Rumford, 2005), in the second half of the 1980s attempts were made to move out of pure liberal forms, and to bring in equality and social justice; these were expressed in the official discourse, both by the Single European Act of 1987 and then by the TEU. We should note that official documents can be seen as the result of the contrasts and combinations of several forces within the process of Europeanization. Given the plurality of organizations and subjects having a say as ‘European’, this involves not only many different national positions but also a plethora of institutions developing their own rationales and interests. A clear example is the role of the Committee of the Regions, created in 1994 to provide ‘local and regional authorities with a voice at the heart of the European Union’, and which has obviously always been a great supporter of ‘unity in diversity’. The appearance of


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the social and cultural dimensions during the 1980s in EC discourse, and the fact that these dimensions could find their space thanks to the new rhetoric of unity in diversity, are thus to be connected to those voices that had always aspired to a ‘deeper’ Europeanization, both within the EC/EU and beyond. In fact, in the field of Europeanization, the prominent agency of the developing discourse on European culture and identity is certainly the Council of Europe (COE), which had been developing its own official narratives and symbols, and had, from its very foundations in the wake of the Second World War, a very clear focus on human rights and culture, and on bringing about closer unity between European countries. From the beginning the idea of the ‘cultural mosaic’ has been enshrined in the Council of Europe, setting for itself the role to promote that peculiar amalgam. Here unity in diversity resonates with the COE’s wider commitment to universalistic values, which have been at its core since two among its first and most important conventions: the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950 and the European Cultural Convention of 1954. Although both are directly relevant to identity, neither employs the word. This is not surprising, for as we have seen, the concept of ‘identity’ had not yet entered the academic and public sphere. When identity does appear, it is from the start connoted as ‘cultural’ and follows the thread of the previous documents. So we have a COE Resolution on European cultural identity in 1985, followed by a further Declaration on the Multicultural Society and European Cultural Identity in 1990 and, to make things even, a Declaration on Cultural Diversity in 2000.15 In the first Committee of Ministers’ Declaration we find one of the earliest and most explicit expositions of European cultural identity as unity in diversity in official discourse: The Committee of Ministers, conscious of a European cultural identity . . . is convinced that unity in diversity is what produces the richness of the common European cultural heritage; notes that common traditions and European identity as the product of a common cultural history are not delimited by the frontiers separating different political systems in Europe. (COE, Res. 85/6) Interestingly, this is used as an argument for promoting cultural co-operation beyond member states with the rest of Europe, and Eastern Europe in particular. For many Eastern countries membership of the

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COE has been a means of gradual entry into the ‘European home’ (Weisglas, 1990). The more encompassing Europe of the COE, both conceptually and geographically, may explain this early development of a discourse that was later adopted by the EC/EU as it was undergoing processes of deepening and widening. Indeed, we find expressed in the COE’s language of the 1980s what we find, a few years later, within the EU, from the Maastricht Treaty onwards. There are differences, but these seem to be a progressive closing of the gap, not only as the EU expands overlapping more and more with the COE, but as the accepted language of identity becomes more and more one that is open to diversity and change.16 Perhaps partly due to this overlap, and certainly because of its mainly consultative nature, the Council of Europe as a separate institution is often unknown by the public, confused with the EU or simply ignored. However, it is curious that this should often be the case in academic accounts as well (with the exception of works on human rights, where the prominence of the COE is usually acknowledged). As this brief description shows, when dealing with issues of identity and its institutional symbolic construction this is a serious flaw. It is worth recalling as a specific example that what we today call the European flag and anthem, and is primarily associated with the EU and its various institutions, were originally created and adopted by the Council of Europe as long ago as 1955 for the flag and 1972 for the anthem. The COE itself encouraged EU institutions to adopt the same symbol in order to ‘strengthen the idea of solidarity between the different organizations in a united and democratic Europe’; by 1986 the EC had obliged. Both institutions now maintain, via their respective websites, that the flag ‘has now become the symbol par excellence of united Europe and European identity’. Official discourse of unity in diversity faces the same critiques of more scholarly accounts for some analysts, with the aggravating circumstance that, being enshrined within a political project, it may be seen as a dangerous or risible exercise in social engineering (Passerini, 1998; Shore, 2000). We can speculate how many people stop to consider that the European flag’s twelve stars ‘symbolise the ideals of unity, solidarity and harmony among the peoples of Europe’ or for that matter, that the Euro symbol (¤) ‘is inspired by the Greek epsilon pointing back to the cradle of European civilization and the initial letter of Europe, crossed by two parallel lines to indicate the stability of the euro’.17 These narratives are certainly not relevant on account of a public diffusion they have yet to achieve, but as well as being useful measures of the tone of official discourse and of its evolving narrative, they


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provide the rationales for future policies. In particular, within cultural policies all these general statements need to find operative concepts and strategies; they are key to observing how the narrative of European identity is turned into practice. This is what we shall see in the next chapter.

2 European Cultural Policies

In the 1980s, a European myth emerged: Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of European integration via the European Economic Community, is reported to have said: ‘If we were to do it all over again, we would start with culture.’ The statement’s mythic nature has been exposed from the beginning by its stark contrast with the actual strategy Monnet pursued (Shore, 2000: 42–4). There is even a claim of direct authorship: Jack Lang, French Minister of Culture in the early 1980s, has declared it is something he said whilst he was trying to organize a meeting of fellow ministers of the other member states. To overcome the opposition he was facing, Lang fell back on the usual trope of invoking the founding fathers, suggesting that if Monnet were to start today, he would start from culture. The hypothetical mode of the sentence was soon forgotten and the myth started to circulate.1 Indeed, informal gatherings of the Ministers of Culture started in 1982. The myth has persisted and is still often reported in the literature, both official, but occasionally also academic. Indeed, it deserves the status of myth precisely in the face of contrary evidence: ‘[w]hether Monnet actually pronounced this phrase is of small importance. Its extraordinary impact shows that there is a high level of identification with it. We should ask ourselves the reasons for this’ (Banus, 2002: 158). These reasons have to do with cultural policy’s need for legitimization, and for the place of culture in Europeanization it presupposes, also providing a revisionist narrative after the partial success of EU monetary union in making Europe a new socio-political reality. In fact, in the first instances of what was to become the European Union – from the ECSC to the EEC – culture was not only overlooked, but intentionally excluded. The dominant neofunctionalist approach to integration did not entail a comprehensive union and the creation of a fully-fledged new European 46

European Cultural Policies

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subjectivity from the start. Instead, it limited integration to specific sectors, economically essential but far from issues of national sovereignty and identity, on the assumption that it would be through economic and technical harmonization only that social and cultural integration would eventually be initiated, through the effect of spill-over. However, the possibility of more comprehensive integration was never really excluded from projects of European cooperation, of which the EU institutions were the main but not the sole actors, and soon found ways to enter the picture. European cultural policies – that is, cultural policies initiated by organizations or, more generally, agencies acting as European – are thus in the odd position of being at the same time limited in their reach and scope, yet distinctively oriented to the ambitious objectives of identity-building. Although these objectives, as we have seen in the Introduction, are a constant element of most cultural policies, here they become dominant, and are particularly explicit in the rhetoric. The combination of these elements makes European cultural policies particularly relevant as symbolic policies – as a cross-cutting class or dimension distinct from more ‘substantial’ regulatory, distributive, redistributive and constitutional ones, according to a classic political science classification (Lowi, 1972; Edelman, 1976); or in more sociological terms, in their role as a social construction of reality (Shore and Wright, 1997). The involvement of European organizations in cultural policies developed for the most part in two forms: first, the ideal of a more comprehensive and geographically extended integration found expression in the Council of Europe, representing, at the time of its foundation in 1949, the concretization of the more idealistic attempts at uniting Europe socially and culturally in order to avoid later conflict. Indeed, culture was at the core of the COE’s activities from the start, as shown in the European Cultural Convention, signed in 1954 with the intent to ‘foster among the nationals of all members, and of such other European States as may accede thereto, the study of the languages, history and civilization of the others and of the civilization which is common to them all’. The second, slower and less obvious way in which culture maintained and incrementally expanded its role in European integration has developed within what were to become the mainstream European institutions, from the ECSC to the EU, and finally secured a place in what now stands for European integration tout court. Moreover, this progressive institutionalization and the particular style of policy-making and implementation of both the EU and the COE in the cultural sector both stimulated and drew on other emerging actors, which increasingly called themselves ‘European’ and developed as grassroots initiatives

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from below, according to an accepted distinction from institutional, top-down initiatives. Given its marginality in more established and ‘hard’ European integration matters, cultural policy has for a long time attracted scant attention, most of which addresses cultural policies in Europe, comparatively assessing national or local policies, rather than European policies in the strong sense defined here. This continues to be the case in general, mainstream accounts of European integration, although a number of specialized studies have emerged in recent years, from a political science perspective in particular, but also from a small but pioneering social and anthropological point of view.2 Only rarely have these analyses tried to consider all the main European agencies; not surprisingly, they all focus on the EU, neglecting the COE and ignoring their relationship (exceptions are Weisglas, 1994; Brossat, 1999; Sticht, 2000), and pay even less account of the flourishing of other European subjects that are both recipients and actors in this emerging field. However, given that Europeanization is, according to most recent accounts, a fragmented, plural and contradictory (sometimes integrating, sometimes disaggregating) process, and in this respect hardly comparable to the nationalization process from which we still tend to derive our analytical tools, it is useful to articulate the following account of European cultural policies according to these three main types of agency: the EU, COE and major grassroots networks and programmes.

2.1 Starting again with culture: EU cultural policies in the politics of integration What Monnet’s new cultural start myth captures well is the perceived need for a new basis of legitimization within the EC institutions which would pave the way out of the stagnation that beset integration in the 1970s. Twenty years after the creation of the ECSC, the time when new Communities and new fields of supranational influence would crop up at a steady pace had come to a halt, and the further ‘deepening’ of European competencies seemed unlikely in the near future. However, the ‘widening’ process – according to a distinction that has become progressively consolidated – had started, and the original ‘Six’ (Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) were joined in 1973 by three more countries (Denmark, Ireland and United Kingdom). To understand EU cultural policy in this dynamic and ambivalent context it is important to follow its slow development in some detail.


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The enthusiasm of the early post-war period to create a united Europe encompassing all aspects, culture included, was channelled, if at all, in the Council of Europe (see section 2.2), and was clearly excluded from the first Communities and their establishing treaties, where there is no mention of a competence on culture.3 Cultural action began, but as a very marginal and disguised sector of intervention which had to ‘pass’ under some of the statutory fields of competence it actually exceeded, notably economic and social policies. Its origins can be found in the 1970s, when culture first emerged as a concern in the EEC, and pressures from the never fully suppressed federalist soul of the Community restored to the agenda (in particular the two main supranational bodies, the Commission and the Parliament) suggestions for more direct actions to achieve comprehensive integration. These were backed by the Declaration of European Identity of 1973 (CEC, 1973; see also chapter 1) and by the influential Report on European Union, prepared by Leo Tindemans, at the time Belgian Prime Minister, in 1976 (CEC, 1976). As well as proposals regarding main foreign and monetary policies, the Tindemans Report had a chapter devoted to the EC’s public image, in which suggestions were made that contained the nucleus of a cultural policy. Titled ‘A Citizen’s Europe’, this chapter established a link between a European identity in need of promotion and advances in political integration, and recommended that focused action be taken to create a people’s Europe, as this could not be expected to materialize as a spin-off of the technocratic one. Despite what analysts tend to see as the empty grandiloquence of much of the European identity rhetoric, and the fact that the Tindemans Report was received with official acclaim but amounted to no practical consequence, the results of these first steps are highly relevant from a sociological perspective. First of all, the EC became recognized as a legitimate actor in cultural matters. Moreover, reference to such things as ‘European identity’ or even ‘European culture’ (in the singular) passed into the language, and – notwithstanding the absence of any definition of their content – could then be elicited as the agreed rationale moving EC involvement into the cultural sector. More generally, as we shall see, European institutions, and the European Commission in particular, adopted in the case of cultural policy an incremental tactic that is representative of the EC policy style peculiar to those sectors in which the competence is neither exclusive nor clear and touches sensitive domains of national identities and sovereignty. In these cases, it has been noted, the strategy is for the Commission (the organ with the mandate to initiate policies) to prepare ‘Communications’ (public documents designed

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to stimulate reflection in the relevant sectors) in order to inform and shape the debate. Combined with programmes of direct grants to the sectors themselves, this creates a climate of consensus and coalition that eventually legitimated the Commission’s proposals (Morata, 1998) and eased the extension of its ‘creeping competence’ (Pollack, 2000). Many policies not covered by the original Treaties have followed a similar path; mechanisms of this type, for instance, are to be found in the social and environmental policies. Like cultural policy, these carry strong elements of national identity, and have been incrementally introduced, initially with general directives (albeit catalysts for focused initiatives), then with financial support creating links with sub-national and societal actors, and thus a demand from below for European intervention (Mazey and Richardson, 1995; Majone, 1996). This is not to say that cultural policy developed without opposition; on the contrary, given the different actors involved came from both the member states and from within the European institutions ‘the process that led to a shift from the national towards the EU level of governance was characterised by constant tensions between subnational, national and EU-level policy actors that were all competing to control policy’ (Littoz-Monnet, 2007: 37). Still, the development of EU cultural policy is best traced by following the Commission initiatives that have been its driving force. In the decade following the Tindemans Report, the Commission published three communications which can be considered milestones in the incremental development of a cultural policy, first in the official rhetoric and finally reaching the level of actual implementation. Revealingly, the first of these communications, issued in 1977, cautiously declared, ‘as the cultural sector is not culture, so community action in the cultural sector is not a cultural policy’ (CEC, 1977: 6). Indeed, action in the field had to be legitimated as a specification of economic or social policies that were already within the competence of the Community. This entailed a focus on the cultural industries, on issues such as the training and work conditions of cultural operators or ad hoc initiatives concerning the production and distribution of cultural goods. Even initiatives to preserve the architectural heritage were phrased in terms of the likely environmental impact or as support for the restoration industries. The second communication (1982) called for a Strengthening of Community Action in the Cultural Sector (CEC, 1982); however, the context was basically unchanged, and in practical terms the measures proposed were hardly put into practice. For different reasons, many of the member countries still viewed EC cultural action with suspicion. This was true in particular of the new members like the United Kingdom


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and Denmark, where public support for the EC was in general considerably less than in the original Six, and where the national tradition was one of minimal public intervention in cultural affairs. Although cautious from the point of view of an actual competence on culture, the rhetoric was quite squarely that of building, or better reawakening, a European identity. However, this might have been, as Theiler puts it, ‘a tactical mistake’; in other words, ‘[p]roposals for “European cultural institutes”, “European showrooms” in museums and the like reeked too much of self-conscious attempts at European “nation-building” to be acceptable even to those governments that might not have opposed less grandiloquent initiatives’ (Theiler, 2005: 59). The following developments show that the Commission both learnt the lesson and at the same time had obtained more from those difficult first steps than first appeared. A turning point is the Solemn Declaration on the European Union (CEC, 1983), where cultural action was finally endorsed in the shape of co-operation in higher education, cultural heritage and dissemination of culture, within the wider programme of building a ‘union’, as a means of fostering a common identity. This gave the Commission the green light it was waiting for, and a series of initiatives was promoted, strongly supported by the powerful new Commission, led by Jacques Delors from 1985, which also established a Commissioner and a Directorate General for Culture (DGX, previously responsible for information only). Notably, the ‘People’s Europe’ campaign was launched in 1985, following the report by an ad hoc committee known, by the name of its chair, as the Adonnino Report (1985). Its aim was nothing less than to find ways for the Community to ‘strengthen and promote its identity and its image both for its citizens and for the rest of the world’, given the very low turnout at the European Parliament elections in 1984, which had brought the issue of the EC democratic and legitimacy deficit to the centre of the public debate. This was at the root of measures of the pervasive, if often dismissed, impact of such issues as university exchange programmes and the introduction of Euro-symbols (the flag, anthem, 9 May as the ‘Day of Europe’, and a common design for national passports). However, many of its proposals have never been implemented and some, such as those for a European lottery and postage, seemed designed to attract critiques of the pathetic and ridiculous gimmicks that indeed followed (Shore, 1993; 2000). In any event, in 1987 the third communication, A Fresh Boost for Culture in the European Community (CEC, 1987), could already build on what was described as the success of these symbolic cultural initiatives, and promote a much bolder

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approach (for more details on these early stages up to Maastricht, see Bekemans, 1993). Meanwhile, the expansion of the EC had progressed, and the accession of Greece, Spain and Portugal in the 1980s proved useful for EC cultural policy, being generally supported by these countries which also had more interventionist national cultural policies. However, it was only five years later with the Maastricht Treaty that a legal framework was established to ratify these developments. So, if cultural action started, on an intergovernmental basis, in the late 1970s, a specific, supranational competence on culture was introduced by the Treaty on the European Union (TEU), signed in Maastricht in 1992 (and amended in Amsterdam in 1997) which contains a title on culture. Together with dispositions for European citizenship, culture is often cited as among the major novelties of the TEU. However, as with citizenship, dispositions on culture are fairly limited and reveal an approach wherein the nation-state remains by far the principal actor. Little has changed since Maastricht in the field of culture, and the bulk enlargement of 2004–7, when twelve, mostly East European countries joined the EU, has been a mixed blessing for cultural policy. For, whilst these countries tend to be in favour of more EU funds in the field, they are cautious when it comes to decision-making. According to a recent Eurobarometer survey in the then EU members-to-be ‘[c]andidate citizens are least likely to cede national decision-making in matters of cultural policy’ (CEC, 2003b: 6). However, looking at the data, one can see how there is only a slight difference from older EU members: 50 per cent of pre-2004 EU countries believe decision in the cultural field should be taken at the national level, against 40 per cent which believe the EU should intervene (CEC, 2002b: 109). In the new countries the figures for the same question are 56 per cent in favour of the national government and 36 per cent for the EU (CEC, 2003b: 6; on the relationship between EU enlargement and cultural policy, see Obuljen, 2006).4 With this mixed support, it is no surprise that the new article on culture in the TEU reveals the difficult debate from which it emerged, substantially only ratifying what was already being done, rather than introducing new domains: ‘The Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore’ (TEU, Art. 151, 1).5 ‘Cultures’ are now referred to in the plural, and the emphasis is on their diversity, as confirmed by the following clauses, where the mandate to ‘respect and to promote the diversity of its cultures’ is reiterated (Article 151, 4).


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However, unity is also actively promoted. Policy analysts continue to see the TEU cultural objectives as contradictory or at best ambiguous: They oscillate between the theme of, on the one hand, putting the Community in charge of fostering cultural unity, and, on the other hand, entrusting it with the preservation of cultural diversity. Indeed, so pervasive is this ambiguity that at times either interpretation could be applied to the same sentence. (Theiler, 2005: 69) Where political scientists see a flaw, the EU sees, as shown in the previous chapter, ‘unity in diversity’. A sociologist, in turn, looks for how a new definition of what is and is not contradictory is constructed and works to legitimate a certain identity of those furthering it. This implies, along with the analysis of official declarations of intent, special attention to actual implementation. In practical terms, EU cultural policy is classified within those domains where the Community has only complementary competence. It only entails co-ordination, integration and support initiatives, and is burdened by the requirement of unanimity in the decision-making process. At the same time, the iron rule of unanimity testifies to the reticence of member states to delegate even small parts of their sovereignty and has the effect of slowing down every initiative. Moreover, even after the TEU, only 0.033 per cent of the EU budget is earmarked for culture, about a tenth of what even the least interventionist member states in the cultural sector invest individually, and amounting to a few cents per citizen per year (Banus, 2002: 160; Theiler, 2005: 82). Combined, these two factors make up the main argument of those pointing out that European cultural action is still limited. EU competence in cultural matters is now legitimated, but it is also given clear limits.6 Sanctioned interventions are not dissimilar to what was being done before Maastricht, so that interpretations still vary on the real impact of current cultural action, and more varied still are the interpretations of how good or desirable that impact is, and how it enters the relational map of pre-existing actors (Forrest, 1994; Pantel, 1999; Delgado-Moreira, 2000; Littoz Banus, 2002; Monnet, 2003). The new legal framework has nevertheless been key in giving cultural initiatives a clearer status, to embed them in an overall strategy that could be more openly presented publicly and obtain greater visibility. In fact, the initiatives that gave substance to the new legal framework were, first, new cultural programmes launched just after Maastricht in

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the second half of the 1990s – Kaleidoscope for cultural co-operation, Raphael for cultural heritage, Ariane for publishing and reading – and subsequently a single framework programme: Culture 2000 (up to 2006) then renamed, with a few adjustments, the Culture Programme (due to run until 2013). The framework programmes not only reorganize the previous ones but also take in other pre-Maastricht initiatives, with the aim of establishing an encompassing approach that will bolster the impact and public image. They are informed by a commitment to the protection of a ‘common cultural heritage’, together with the promotion of better knowledge and awareness of the cultures of the European peoples (now strictly in the plural), whose variety, as is always recalled, is Europe’s richness, strictly following the TEU ‘unity in diversity’ solution. Therefore, on paper, the objectives are very broad and quite explicitly address the question of European cultural identity, claiming that cultural policy exists to protect and at the same time foster it, providing a broad legitimization for the European integration project as a whole. As we find in the document which established the new Culture Programme: Promoting cultural and linguistic cooperation and diversity thus helps to make European citizenship a tangible reality by encouraging direct participation by European citizens in the integration process. . . . For citizens to give their full support to, and participate fully in, European integration, greater emphasis should be placed on their common cultural values and roots as a key element of their identity. (Decision/1903/2006/EC) Even more explicitly summarizing the idea of ‘unity in diversity’ is the EU website, where the Culture Programme’s aim is presented as ‘celebrat[ing] Europe’s diverse cultures and enhanc[ing] appreciation of our shared cultural heritage’. The strategy designed to ‘construct a shared European cultural space’ continues to follow the thread of a consolidated approach, which mainly financially supports projects of cross-border co-operation and exchange across Europe, according to what the evaluation criteria of the programme sum up as ‘European added value’: a project’s European dimension, typically measured in terms of actual co-operation (organizational, institutional, financial) and exchange with partners of different member states.7 A system of direct grants to various cultural actors, operating mainly at the local level, is thus still at the heart of EU cultural policy. Earlier initiatives,


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such as the European City/Capital of Culture (see Part II), have in fact been easily integrated into the framework programmes. The backbone of the programme’s implementation, on average, comprises around 200 projects financed every year (out of about 700 applications), for a total allocation of about ¤30 million a year, and a total of ¤236.5 million. Of these, 80 per cent were distributed to independent, local initiative projects of networks of partners, and only 10 per cent were reserved for those ‘special actions’ that, being at least partly directly initiated by the EC (the European City/Capital of Culture initiative is thus classified), can be identified as its own and focus on the European dimension.8 In other words, the latter are the projects that ‘should strike a significant chord with the peoples of Europe and help to increase their sense of belonging to the same community’ (from the EU’s website). Projects of this type realized within Culture 2000 have been – in addition to the support given to the European City/Capital of Culture – the award of two European prizes for artistic talent in Europe in the field of architecture and heritage, European heritage laboratories, the European Heritage days (in co-operation with the COE), as well as one-off actions such as the European presence during the 2003 tercentenary celebrations in St Petersburg, celebrations for the 2004 enlargement, Verdi year celebrations in 2001 and, in 2005, cultural co-operation projects taking place in Japan. The new programme has an almost doubled budget (¤400 million for the period 2007–13 – still a minuscule programme compared to structural funds) and is slightly more detailed, having also integrated support for ‘European cultural bodies’ and dispositions for analysis activities. However, the percentages have remained substantially unchanged, so that bottom-up initiatives continue to receive most of the budget and dominate the approach. Emerging from the ‘programme evaluations’ commissioned by the EU – the only data currently available on Culture 2000 as a whole but that can hardly qualify as impact studies (Ecotec, 2006; PLS-Ramboll Management, 2003; see also EU’s official responses: CEC, 2003a, 2006) – these data show how difficult it is to measure the impact of such a programme. The guiding ‘watering can’ principle, which distributes the quasi-totality of the budget to hundreds of subjects across Europe, creates a situation that is difficult to summarize in a few main policy outputs, connecting them to stated objectives.9 Not surprisingly, the evaluations mentioned are on the whole positive: Culture 2000 has a set of very broad objectives, and the verbs through which they are enacted (‘promote’, ‘share’, ‘highlight’, ‘take into

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account’, ‘disseminate’, ‘foster’, ‘explicitly recognise’ and ‘improve access to’) mostly do not lend themselves to quantification or the specification of end points. However, in the sense that projects are making contributions to achieving all of them, it can be concluded that the Programme is broadly achieving its objectives. . . . That said, greater progress appears to have been made against some objectives than others. Thus with regard to the more general ‘core’ objectives of the Programme, most projects report impacts in terms of improving knowledge of European cultures and heritage, and improving understanding of European cultural diversity. . . . A number of benefits of transnationality have been identified . . . . These benefits and the European dimension of the Programme have given rise to a range of added values, including: strengthened cultural links among countries; increased perception of European identity; and better integration of the New Member States. (Ecotec, 2006: 105, 113) This appears to repeat the official rhetoric rather than telling us something about the cultural contents that have found space within it, even less challenging the EU approach. So it is not surprising that those few social and political scientists that have looked into this take a rather different view, finding these evaluation exercises unreliable and remaining sceptical with regard to the actual value of European projects and networks, which are seen to be ‘ephemeral’ if not ‘obscure’ (Theiler, 2005: 75, 84). Others describe at length the difficulties the EU faced in introducing even these limited programmes – the budget cuts, the delays, the arguing over phrasing and objectives – as a hint of its still very highly constrained action in the sector, for good or bad (see Brossat, 1999: 450 ff.). However, both laudatory and dismissive ‘impact assessments’ tend to overlook that this incremental, bottom-up approach harbours a two-fold policy. On the one hand, cultural policy as an extension of less identitysensitive ones (economic policy in particular) continues to develop, with the straightforward objective of fostering a European cultural sector, where different national traditions have transferred to the European level the confrontation between dirigiste and liberal approaches, with the latter currently being dominant (Littoz-Monnet, 2007). In this case, the ‘European cultural space’ called for is presented as a specification of the European economic space, and culture is promoted as simply another industry. In this respect, any impact appears limited or inconsistent, because of the scale and nature of the funding. On the other


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hand, at the same time a cultural policy driven by a more ambitious logic has continued to develop, a policy that works on a European cultural identity. This is the objective that we find more explicitly in those actions that the EU sometimes defines as symbolic, or of special significance, such as the European City/Capital of Culture, as well as being repeated in preambles and the general dispositions of official documents, from the 1980s up to the new Culture programme and beyond: ‘developments in the 1980s reasserted that the promoting of cultural policies at the EC level was part of a broader project, the objective of which was to foster a sense of European identity among Community citizens’ (ibid.: 55). According to this analyst, one can conclude that ‘there is still no comprehensive and positive “European cultural policy”. Rather EU intervention in the cultural sector is a mixture of dirigiste support schemes, symbolic initiatives and attempts to harmonize EU law in terms of the Single Market (ibid.: 67). However, symbolic initiatives do not simply sit in between the two opposite approaches around which intervention in culture as an economic sector is organized. Rather, the symbolic dimension, which focuses on identity-building, is the theoretical rationale of the policy as a whole. In this light, instead of seeing an amalgam of contradictory initiatives, we can trace an underlying but consistent attempt to build a European cultural space in terms of a profound, if ill-defined, new sociocultural reality, something that we can envisage as the equivalent projected into the future of what in the past is the idea – equally ill-defined and allegedly deep-seated – of a common European heritage. In this second, symbolic dimension the policy is much more coherent. However, there is an almost total lack of attempts to assess and interpret it in the repetitive, grandiloquent, cautious and as a result rather tortuous official discourse. This dual nature of EU cultural policy is confirmed by the most recent attempt to give EU cultural policy a fresh impetus, which has taken the form, once again, of a Commission communication, revealingly titled European Agenda for Culture in a Globalising World (CEC, 2007a). This was launched during the First European Cultural Forum in Lisbon in 2007, itself part of the new attempts at raising the public profile of EU cultural policies and to go beyond Maastricht limitations by opening an intergovernmental debate on the role of culture within main strategic plans, such as the Lisbon agenda. This communication recalls culture’s dual definition: ‘Culture’ . . . can refer to the fine arts, including a variety of works of art, cultural goods and services. ‘Culture’ also has an anthropological

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meaning. It is the basis for a symbolic world of meanings, beliefs, values, traditions . . . . As such, it plays a fundamental role in human development and in the complex fabric of the identities and habits of individuals and communities. (ibid.: 3) This dual definition justifies interventions in the ‘cultural sector’ as well as those to foster identities. The two sides of EU cultural policy, corresponding to the ‘two notions of culture’, are now phrased in ‘strategic terms’ and, perhaps as a sign of a growing confidence and consolidation, are starting to look to the outside so that, on the one hand, as far as the cultural sector is concerned, the Communication calls for a stronger role for culture in terms of economic competition and diplomacy (‘culture is an indispensable feature to achieve the EU’s strategic objectives of prosperity, solidarity and security, while ensuring a stronger presence on the international scene’); and, on the other, ‘intercultural dialogue’ becomes a primary objective in terms of how culture is related to identity.10 This works as a new rhetorical solution to gloss over a definition of what would be a European culture coming to that dialogue (indeed, the expression is not used once in the document), and instead stresses the internal difference of all cultures and, by implication, identities. The lack of a definition of culture, and the resulting application of an implicit limited and normative concept, has been the object of critical debate within the EU institutions since at least the 1990s, with the Committee of the Regions being particularly critical of the Commission’s position (see CEC 1996; COR 1997; for a more detailed account, see Sassatelli, 2008), as well as within academe (Shore, 2006). However, as we have seen, as a result EU official discourse has become progressively more and more reflexive, by necessity rather than by virtue we may add. If it has not abandoned the underlying ideas of culture as a discrete and bounded unit, and as instrumental to ‘integration’, it has certainly had to open spaces for interpretation. In this the feedback from those local agencies through which EU cultural policy is implemented, as well as the deepening relationship with the more sophisticated discourse of the Council of Europe, are key aspects to consider.

2.2 A ‘Europe without dividing lines’: the COE’s think-tank role From its very foundation in 1949, following Sir Winston Churchill’s famous post-war speech calling for a United States of Europe and the


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creation of a Council of Europe as a first step, the COE has been based on a broad spectrum, regarding the fields that would be touched by its activities, and thus the underlying idea of Europeanization, and its geographical scope.11 Its original founding members were ten (Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom). Today they number 47, having grown steadily and then with a major intake from East and Central Europe after 1989 and the end of the Cold War. As we have seen (chapter 1) the COE’s statute contains the nucleus of the repertoire of ‘unity in diversity’, subsequently articulated in several resolutions and declarations on cultural identity, diversity and multicultural society. Although mainly a consultative body, the COE’s role should not be overlooked. This is especially the case in the field of culture, one of its specializations and where it acted de facto as a think-tank for solutions adopted later by the EU: ‘The Council of Europe can be considered as a model, not only because it covers the whole [post-war] period, but because it develops in particular all the elements for an interpretation of European culture that will be taken up, to a lesser extent, by the European union’ (Brossat, 1999: 3; my translation). As it does not involve the transfer of powers from the member states, the COE works (in the words of one of the many experts that speak on its behalf) as an ‘intergovernmental system of government specialists and experts, supplemented by representatives of academia, NGOs and other non-governmental institutions, in other words of civil society’ (Terrillon-Mackay, 2000: 5). Its role for Europeanization may thus not be easily identified and restricted to single legal instruments or specific programmes and projects, but is instead widespread and multifaceted. Its leitmotiv has been co-operation rather than integration, with a focus on human rights, social and cultural issues. COE documents have explicitly focused on culture from the outset, with early documents especially boldly using ‘European culture’ in the singular, yet progressively problematizing the concept in keeping with advances in the social and human sciences. The fundamental text in this field, the European Cultural Convention of 1954, is revealing: it is a very concise text, stating in its brief preamble that COE members: Considering that it is desirable not only to conclude bilateral cultural conventions between Members of the Council but also to pursue a policy of common action designed to safeguard and encourage the development of European culture [have] resolved to conclude a

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general European Cultural Convention designed to foster among the nationals of all Members, and of such other European States as may accede thereto, the study of the languages, history and civilisation of the others and of the civilisation which is common to them all. (ETS n. 18, Preamble) To these ends, contracting parties – today, all 47 COE members – are committed to promoting the development of their ‘national contribution to the common cultural heritage of Europe’, and more specifically, to supporting the study of European languages, and promoting cultural activities of ‘European interest’, the transnational mobility of persons and goods, as well as the protection of and access to the European heritage. In short, these are the key elements of that cultural co-operation that has become the COE’s trademark (for a detailed account, see the two official reports: Grosjean, 1995; Terrillon-Mackay, 2000; see also the internal report Fifty Years of Cultural Convention, available, like most of the COE’s documents, online at www.coe.int). Although new themes and initiatives have been progressively introduced, we can identify this consistent approach, which is still in use today, made up of ‘practical co-operation, based on comparisons of experience, case-studies, analyses and pilot projects involving both governmental and non-governmental organizations. All these activities have enabled it to develop a body of knowledge and know-how and create networks of partners to find solutions to common problems’ (Terrillon-Mackay, 2000: 5). This operational mode has meant that ‘cultural action’ output is to be found in conferences and commissioned studies as well as in more direct initiatives. These tend to be elaborated not only on an intergovernmental basis as required by the COE status, but also in a process of ongoing consultation with experts, academics, practitioners and representatives of organized civil society. Indeed, the emphasis on the organized non-governmental sector contribution is gaining ground, and since 1984 has its own COE Convention (European Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International Non-Governmental Organizations, ETS n. 124). Conventions are the main type of act issued by the COE. They are international treaties establishing standards shared by ratifying countries. At present they number over 200; a few of these have public resonance and have also concretized in internal institutional developments and identifiable policy fields. This is the case with the European Court of Human Rights, created to implement what is widely recognized as the COE’s most important achievement, the European Convention


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on Human Rights. More specifically related to the field of culture, the European Cultural Convention, as well as subsequent conventions on cultural and natural heritage (including the European Landscape Convention; see Part III12 ), have found institutional grounding since 1961, when the Council for Cultural Co-operation was established as a committee of governmental representatives responsible for education, culture, media, sport and youth. A dedicated Directorate for Culture, Cultural and Natural Heritage was also established. Other institutional developments include a Centre for Modern Languages in Graz and a North–South Centre in Lisbon. More recently, a European Institute of Cultural Routes was created in 1998 in Luxembourg. This developed in relation to a well-established COE programme which officially recognizes key European itineraries as ‘Cultural Routes’, on the model of the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route (the first to be listed), with a view ‘to rais[ing] awareness of a European cultural identity and European citizenship, based on a set of shared values given tangible form by means of cultural routes retracing the history of the influences, exchanges and developments which have shaped European cultures’ (ww.coe.int). The Cultural Routes initiative is a good example of the first of two types of action turning the principles of cultural co-operation into practice, from the 1950s to today and characterizing COE’s activities in the field. These are, on the one hand, specific, mostly ad hoc projects; on the other, research and training activities. Let us consider them in some detail. As we shall see, by analysing the first we can address the key theme of the COE’s relationship with the EU in the field of culture, whilst the second is useful in probing more deeply into the rationale of COE’s notion(s) of culture and Europeanization. A first type of COE cultural policy concerns direct interventions in the field of culture. These have remained rather limited, as the COE cannot mobilize the economic or legitimization resources to support main programmes on a large scale. Although a vast number of ‘projects’ are listed in its official publications, the latter also make clear that they are mainly well-delimited actions (the preferred term is ‘pilot’). In a rich portfolio, examples have included programmes such as Apollonia for artistic exchanges with Central and East European countries, or Pont de l’Europe, calling European writers and artists to reflect on the theme of the bridge and then installing their work on the bridge linking Strasbourg and Kehl. Transnational art exhibitions have been promoted by the COE, such as ‘Art and Power: Europe under Dictators 1930–45’. The list continues likewise, comprising conferences, prizes,

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cinema co-production support (Euroimages), European Heritage Days (one of the first actions to be developed in collaboration with the EU), and so on. However, as the COE’s budget is financed through the limited, and variable, membership fees paid by the states, these forms of direct support are equally limited (Sticht, 2000: 49–51). Trying to make the most of limited funds, the COE, like the EU but even more so, aims at stimulating ‘local’ actors and networks through these actions. As a result, the attribution of agency (motives, strategies and tactics) is not always straightforward. There is a kind of mutual legitimization: the COE often claims to respond to a ‘social demand’ for its intervention, shown by the plurality of subjects interested and involved. In their turn, these local actors receive an institutional support (and if not direct funding, arguments to seek other sponsorships) which enshrines their activities in a much broader scenario of relevance. Peculiar to this approach is the direct, explicit link that is always repeated, at the level of official discourse of the involved actors, between these focused activities and wide Europeanization objectives; in other words, the rationale of each and everyone of these actions, no matter how large or limited in scope, is seen as a step towards ‘European identity’. Rather than fading away, this rhetoric has progressively gained ground, becoming even more evident within the COE since the second half of the 1980s, when, as we have seen (in chapter 1), the term identity officially entered the field with the Resolution on European Cultural Identity (COE, Res. 85/6). To some extent, this document is as anodyne as all such declarations seem doomed to be. However, it does carry a specific significance that should not be overlooked or taken for granted. Having stressed that ‘cultural co-operation makes an indispensable contribution to European awareness’ and ‘that a strengthening of cultural co-operation will contribute to greater mutual rapprochement of the peoples and states of Europe and thus promote lasting understanding’ (ibid.), the ‘practical’ dispositions following on from this are not as general. Rather, they address a theme that was by then becoming of increasing relevance for Europeanization in a wider sense and context, namely, the relationship between the two halves of Europe. The Resolution’s strategy supports the idea that the time had come to focus on a dialogue with Eastern Europe. This one-page document concludes that ‘Council of Europe member states should . . . express to Eastern European countries their continued readiness for cultural co-operation’. Some go as far as seeing this as announcing a major shift in approach: Since 1989, the emphasis has largely switched to co-operation and policy development aimed at the new democracies of central and


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eastern Europe. This process, which has greatly benefited all the members, has given cultural co-operation a new dimension. (Terrillon-Mackay, 2000: 26). According to the official account, this has combined with a consolidation of a shift, which started in the 1970s, from the objective of democratizing (elite) culture to a new cultural democracy comprising the right to cultural expression, which is associated with an expanding notion of culture analogous to advances in the social sciences (Simpson, 1976). Indeed, the COE has always been careful not to miss the latest fashion in academic parlance, mainly by commissioning analyses and reports by leading scholars. The widening of the concept of culture, as well as of the geographical reach of the COE, has also meant greater focus on identity: Growing awareness of European cultural identity and the need to promote it, adopted by the Committee of Ministers in 1989 as one of the work programme’s main emphases, has had a significant impact on recent developments (art exhibitions, Cultural Routes, conservation of the film heritage). Diversity is seen as a major feature of that cultural identity and, as such, worth preserving. (Grosjean, 1995: n.p.) The celebration of cultural diversity as contributing to social cohesion, and not an obstacle to it, is a recent expression that COE’s cultural policy promotes its ideal of a ‘Europe without dividing lines’. This is both a way to restate its specificity and its forerunner role with respect to the EU: the terms used might have stayed the same, but their meaning has changed over time with the organizations themselves. These developments should be read in connection with the unresolved relationship with the evolving European institutions, from the ECSC to the EU. The shift in focus is partly the result of the COE’s need to remain distinct from ever-stronger institutions in Brussels, and partly because the latter, due to their ongoing deepening and widening process causing increasing overlap with the COE, have been adopting solutions and approaches experimented with by the COE, especially in the field of culture. The COE has been anxiously watching these developments, considering culture, in the words of a member of the COE assembly, as ‘what could be defined [as] its last great reserved domain’ (quoted in Brossat, 1999: 314). However, after initial periods of (mutual) rivalry and ignorance, the two organizations have come to terms with the idea of convergence. A COE liaising office was set up in Brussels

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in 1975, but it is only since the second half of the 1980s that we can start speaking of co-operation and convergence between the two organizations. The idea of rivalry is increasingly denied by members of the two organizations – members that are, of course, often embodied by the same person (national representatives sitting at both COE and EU councils and assemblies). Currently, as we have seen in the case of the now shared symbols, whatever might be the competition and unresolved division of labour that remain in the two organizations, they favour a public image of total overlap and mutual support. This relatively recent development has been consecrated in a jointly signed Memorandum of Understanding between the Council of Europe and the European Union (CM (2007)74). Building on other documents of mutual recognition and entente progressively issued over the last twenty years, this 2007 Memorandum establishes that ‘the Council of Europe and the European Union will develop their relationship in all areas of common interest’, which basically include all areas of the COE’s specialization, ‘intercultural dialogue and cultural diversity’ among them.13 Indeed, the TEU’s article on culture states that ‘The Community and the Member States shall foster cooperation with third countries and the competent international organizations in the sphere of culture, in particular the Council of Europe’ (emphasis added). In a sense, however, early fears on the part of the COE of being sidelined by the younger (and wealthier) EU were not totally unjustified. To this day, when people (the media, ‘the layman’, but also many of my ‘expert’ interviewees, as we shall see in particular in Parts II and III) speak of ‘Europe’, they ignore the COE, or its distinction from the EU, which is what they actually refer to. Even most scholarly analyses seem to conflate them or to take for granted a relationship that is in fact quite complex and changing. On the other hand, it is the EU that is adapting to, or adopting, the COE’s approach. Indeed, the COE’s European Cultural Convention rhetoric, and its subsequent developments, have been progressively embodied in the EU’s emerging cultural discourse. Rationale, strategy, even operational modes: especially in recent years the EU has been drawing its inspiration from the COE’s approach, whose role as provider of ‘theoretical’ guidance for the EU’s more ‘practical’ tasks has been explicitly sanctioned by the Memorandum. One simple but clear example is that the EU declared 2008 to be the ‘Year of Intercultural Dialogue’, after the COE held major ministerial conferences on the same subject in 2003 and 2005, published reports and declarations (see in particular the documents related to the 2005 Faro Conference, at www.coe.int). The two organizations have joint initiatives on this topic.


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One of the aspects where co-ordination between the COE and the EU was first achieved was in the regular exchange of reports and studies (Sticht, 2000: 50). Here too the COE has led the way, with a series of research, monitoring and training activities which can be considered the second major strand of its action in the cultural field. Instead of direct intervention in the sector, these secondorder activities address the building (considered preliminary) of a European-wide, comparative knowledge base of the state of the art in culture and cultural policies in Europe. Here the approach is more far-reaching and encompassing. With the promotion of knowledge and awareness, central to its Statute and to the European Cultural Convention, the programme of national cultural policy review carried out by the Council for Cultural Co-operation within the COE since 1985 is often acknowledged as its most important contribution to the field. This assessment exercise is aimed explicitly at a ‘more focused harmonisation around certain particular key ideas’, by providing reliable information to participating countries and to others, and with a view to ‘facilitat[ing] comparative studies’. To that end, it is based on a standard procedure in every country. Once a national report assessing the country’s cultural policy is prepared by the relevant national authorities, a European group of experts appointed by the Council of Europe analyses it, based also on site visits, drafting its own report containing both an assessment and recommendations. The national report and the experts’ report are then presented to the Council of Europe; and the procedure is expected to conclude with a national debate in the country concerned. As for the financing is concerned, three-quarters of the costs are generally covered by the participating states (Gordon and Mundy, 2001: 14). Following the lead of France and Sweden, the first two countries to complete their review, most countries have to date completed the process; others are under way. As the comparative potential seems to have been the least successful part of the programme so far, the COE has also started producing summaries and comparative and analytical digests, and has launched a new programme of across-the-board policy reviews (Bennett, 2001) and created a regularly updated Compendium of Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe as an open-access online database (www.culturalpolicies.net), enabling customized comparisons and analyses. Overall, this is certainly the initiative that has received most public and academic attention, generating a number of semi-official or semi-independent publications (see Gordon and Mundy, 2001), in collaboration with other organizations, such as UNESCO, pointing to the

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role of this programme as an indirect but nonetheless relevant element of Europeanization. Of all COE output in this field, the detailed and lengthy report In from the Margins. A Contribution to the Debate on Culture and Development in Europe (ETFCD, 1997) is certainly the most relevant and widely recognized. As its subtitle indicates, it was conceived as a European contribution to the global debate on culture and development which saw the influential UNESCO report Our Creative Diversity (WCCD, 1995) as both its starting point and consolidation of a new approach. The latter has been described as a ‘paradigm shift’ (McGuigan, 2004: 99) which frames cultural diversity, and not simply ‘culture’, as a key asset for social cohesion, and therefore development. This is premised on a clearer recognition by policy-makers of a wider, ‘anthropological’ and thus relativistic notion of culture (although still enshrined within a moral universalism; see Eriksen, 2001). Along with ‘aesthetic and/or scientific-cognitive values and practices (culture with a capital C)’ a wider ‘anthropological idea of culture as the values and practices that underlie all forms of human behaviour’ is considered (ETFCD, 1997: 27–8). If, for practical reasons of scope of analysis, ‘the task force decided to pay special attention to the arts and related activities’, the latter are ‘seen in a wider cultural framework than is usual’ (ibid.: 28), as the direct link with the issue of development – that is, within the wider UNESCO Creative Diversity framework – shows. In its European incarnation this framework entails a double process of inclusion: ‘to bring the millions of dispossessed and disadvantaged Europeans in from the margins of society and cultural policy in from the margins of governance’ (ETFCD, 1997: 9). In COE style, the task force responsible for the report was an ‘independent group of policy makers, researchers and cultural managers’ (ibid.). The key issue of the report is nevertheless familiar: the key question which this report seeks to address: to what extent should the development of the arts and culture, and especially the transmission of their impacts into overall development, be left to market forces and, if and when public intervention is deemed to be necessary, on which areas should it focus and what forms should it take? In other words, what should be the criteria for assessing the proper role of public intervention? (ETFCD, 1997: 239–40) However, the usual solution to this old diatribe of market vs. public intervention – the protection and fostering of national identities, a common trait of all cultural policies – is now problematic, especially


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from the point of view of the transnational organizations behind these reports, which obviously focus on globalization’s – or more specifically Europeanization’s – challenges to state control and, in relation to that, of cultural relativism to unidimensional hierarchies of cultural value. Still, the report does use the old solution of falling back on the idea that ‘[f]or good or ill, culture is a powerful promoter of identity’. However, instead of opting for the latter as dependent on cultural homogeneity, it struggles to forge a new combination, or a new narrative, that is explicitly one of co-existence of (needless to say) unity and diversity. Identity is still the ultimate target of cultural policy, and at the same time its basis, but it is a rhetoric of identity that sees it as containing diversity. All references to a European identity, and to Europe as ‘a culture of cultures’, go in this direction. All this is well meant and is both commissioned and written to be critique-proof. But that seems to be precisely the problem with official reports. ‘There is hardly a word in the reports, action plans and universal declarations of the new paradigm of cultural development and diversity’, says McGuigan, ‘with which I personally would want to disagree. It all seems so very reasonable and decent. That makes me feel uneasy’ (2004: 100). Those who are favourably disposed may see this as ‘open-endedness’. But those who are not – and scholars have a professional duty to have a critique ready – will certainly see in it ‘the vague, all-encompassing abstraction of bureaucratic rhetoric’ (ibid.: 102). As we have seen, critical voices such as McGuigan’s not only see the report as addressing old issues, but more pointedly see, beneath the consensual rhetoric, compliance with neo-liberal globalization. According to McGuigan, culture and cultural policy are made to accommodate it, finding in the European report a slightly more critical tone than in UNESCO’s one thanks to an equating of globalization with Americanization, an old antagonist of European cultural policies (ibid.: 99–104). Another critique, along lines similar, though not identical to McGuigan’s, is that the culturalization of difference may actually work, despite the best intentions, as a naturalization of inequalities (Cronin, 2002). Although both critiques may be relevant, given the ambiguous and polysemic nature of watchwords such as diversity, participation, creativity and identity, they are not necessarily so. Whether or not they are can be established only in part by policy analysis alone. Written as critique-proof, these reports hardly speak for themselves; they need to be contextualized, and not only in an exclusively textual framework, by focusing on the relationships between different agencies and struggles, so that the meaning of a polysemic word such as ‘diversity’ becomes clear. In reports like these, such words become markers of a position

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that can only be understood by going beyond a single text. For example, for a long time the COE did not use the expression ‘cultural sector’ unless it was in relation to EU’s cultural action, and that was to mark its consideration of the latter as a mainly economic endeavour and not really concerned with cultural issues, which were considered to be the COE’s own province. Moreover, it is crucial to try to see what the people involved do with these ‘new paradigms’ and guidelines. That can be done at many levels and in various ways. A first step is to look at the other agencies that are emerging as a result of the Europeanization of cultural policies and that are increasingly appropriate, substantiate and rework its rhetoric.

2.3 Grassroots Europe A particularly relevant aspect of both the EU’s and the COE’s approaches to cultural affairs is that they are based on, and promote, the proliferation of more or less formal networks and projects of local cultural operators. With the financial support of the EU, and the ‘theoretical’ legitimacy provided by the COE, conditions are there for international subjects to co-operate on common projects.14 Because of their origin, these end up having rhetorics and working methods that are very close to those of the European organizations.15 These so-called grassroots initiatives rely on such European institutional support, function as incubators for the solutions and approaches designed at the ‘central’ level, and are then monitored according to standard procedures. In a way this jeopardizes the distinction between top-down programmes of co-operation and bottom-up initiatives, contributing to a subtle but substantial reconfiguration of the field. Some authors have seen a serious weakness in the main organizations’ strategy, and the EU’s in particular, to delegate to networks: ‘the low visibility of the Union’s post-Maastricht cultural initiatives was an inevitable result of their preoccupation with “networks” ’ (Theiler, 2005: 73). However, we can observe that the strategy of penetrating relevant public debates and making initiatives appear to emerge ‘from below’ has significantly resulted in giving flesh and blood to the idea of a ‘European cultural space’ – a space where the EU and the COE are not the only agencies involved in cultural policies that have ‘European’ in their name, or Europeanization on their agenda. Indeed, the two main European organizations’ operational mode based on the stimulation of bottom-up demand, especially through transnational groups and initiatives, as well as the involvement of civil society and academic experts,


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has borne fruit, so that today an account of active subjects in Europe, more or less local and more or less ‘networked’, may want to question their definition as ‘grassroots’, but should consider them. Indeed, broadening the type of subjectivities under consideration means enlarging the idea of Europeanization. And this is precisely the point: Europeanization exists, not because of any mysterious virtues – or of ‘Europeanness’ – but due to the material and cultural conditions from which it emerges, a process with shifting boundaries and contents, and with no mainstream agency able to totally create, substantiate and impose a monolithic narrative or practice. To consider grassroots agencies means including a notion of Europeanization referring to a multi-dimensional process of transformation which goes beyond the EU’s institutions to embrace a concern with networks and boundaries, the export of the EU-model, and the inter-penetration of national systems. . . . Europeanization includes the emergence of cross-national policy networks and communities and shifts in ‘cognition, discourse, and identity’. (Delanty and Rumford, 2005: 6–7; see also Olsen, 2002; Featherstone, 2003) Here, of course, the picture is more sketchy, as these actors are less clearly defined, more unstable and numerous. Some key examples can, however, show how ignoring them is to disregard important dimensions of Europeanization. One of the oldest and most significant cases in this respect is the European Cultural Foundation, which is illustrative of how entangled ‘institutional’ and ‘private’ (or non-governmental) initiatives are in this arena. Indeed, a Foundation was among the first proposals of EC cultural action in the 1970s (see section 2.1). At this institutional level the proposal remained an idea, however a European Cultural Foundation had been privately established, well before explicit support by the European institutions, in 1954 by the philosopher and scholar of Europe, Denis de Rougemont. It first operated from Geneva and then moved to Amsterdam, for both practical and financial reasons; in 1960 it also signed a co-operation agreement with the Council of Europe. Today, it continues its programme of cultural co-operation, research and grants, supporting more than 800 cross-border projects between 1990 and 2000 (Authissier, 2004: 16). Indeed, although an expression of civil society, the Foundation is quite institutionalized: its governing body comprises a

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director, a board and advisory council. The Foundation also has national committees representing it in several European countries, and links with national cultural institutes that it helped establish and become independent (for instance, Manchester’s European Institute for the Media and the Vienna’s European Institute for Human Sciences). As well as its own programmes – mainly funds for co-operation programmes, mobility grants and prizes for individuals and organizations – it often carries out projects commissioned or supported by the EU, and it notably managed the well-known student exchange programme Erasmus at the time of its inception. Since the 1990s the ECF has concentrated on the effects of the end of the Cold War and on co-operation with Central and Eastern Europe; more recently, its priority is more generally that of advocate of European cultural policy. Still, ‘networks’ are certainly the most common form of grassroots agency to consider; they bring together partners from different countries and sometimes act as an interface between their sector and the EU and COE.16 They draw support from the EU (through funds for specific projects mainly), the COE (through recognizing them as partners and inviting them for consultations) and even the European Cultural Foundation. For instance, the latter supports the network Policies of Culture, created in 2000 to promote participative cultural policies in south-east Europe and gathering both governmental and non-governmental local bodies from the region. As this example shows, while most networks bring together practitioners within the cultural sector, some are research or policy networks. A prominent example is the EFAH (European Forum for the Arts and Heritage), established in 1992 and now representing ‘over 5,000 organisations across 25 EU Member States and beyond’ to ‘ensure that cultural associations, operators and artists have a voice in Europe’ (www.efah.org). Even just counting European networks, or grassroots initiatives with a European dimension and orientation, is not straightforward, as this is still a fluid field where different instances emerge and compete for the definitions themselves. The number of European cultural networks clearly depends on the definition of culture, Europe and even network: it can vary from a few tens to a few hundreds, depending on how well established and long lasting they should be in order to be considered (Fisher, 1997; Pehn, 1999). The portal www.culture.info has a list of established ones which currently amounts to nearly 100 networks: in the 1980s, networks appeared as innovative and informal platforms in comparison with the traditional international organizations affiliated with UNESCO . . . . In the 1990s many new networks were set


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up in an enthusiastic exploration of new post-Cold War opportunities and membership became more inclusive, with new members from Central and Eastern Europe joining their West European colleagues. (Klaic, 2007: 80–1) A recent study, commissioned by the EU to explore the feasibility of a European Observatory on cultural co-operation across Europe, although it contains no precise data or lists, affirms that it is evident that the development of cultural co-operation in Europe has largely been a result of a ‘bottom up process’. This has resulted in the existence of a large number of ‘communities of practice’, different and sometimes overlapping networks, and observatories which are not necessarily evenly distributed in geographical terms and between sectors. (Ecotec, 2003: 34–5) As a result, the report sums up, there are ‘some benefits, in that current networks and observatories are “owned” and valued, but also means that the field is relatively fragmented’ (ibid.: 6). As for the Council of Europe, NGOs, most of which define themselves as ‘networks’ with international dimensions, which have an official ‘participatory status’ for the culture and education sector, which means that they are consulted within the COE’s periodic conference of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs, comprising over 400 NGOs) number nearly 100. Still, although some of these organizations might have reached a level of public recognition (for instance, Europa Nostra, European Forum for the Arts and Heritage, Eurocities, Europa Cinemas, the trailer of which is shown in nearly 700 cinemas and 400 cities across Europe before film projections) they are mainly of interest to specialists; for the latter, however, it is increasingly important to be associated with at least one of them. If one adopts an inclusive definition of the term network, many may be ad hoc, short-term associations established for specific projects and often set up to fulfil the EU requirement of transnational collaboration to access funds, short-lived consortia that may end, change name or re-emerge later. However, it is also true that among the most established networks, several have stemmed from institutionally sponsored initiatives. For instance, the now well-established Gulliver network of artists with its own mobility and work placement programme first emerged as an informal working group out of Amsterdam European City of Culture 1987, to ‘provide an opportunity for us, Europeans, North and South,

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East and West, from large and small nations, to create a common future while respecting our diversity’ (www.gulliverconnect.org). The European City/Capital of Culture, the first case study this book focuses on (see Part II), has also produced two more ‘institutional’ networks – the network of the previous ECOC and, more recently, the network of universities for the study of ECOC. A similar pattern can be seen for COE initiatives. Even these are apt not only to aggregate but also to stimulate networks, if not through funding, then by creating occasions to meet and establish lasting cross-national contacts. For example, the COE’s European Landscape Convention, the second case study we focus on, has stimulated so many networks and other local initiatives in its short life that three main ‘networks of networks’ for the implementation of the ELC have been established: of local powers, of universities and of NGOs (see Part III). All this interweaving in the European space has important implications, because it may be difficult to single out overall objectives and determine a clear picture of them: as each of these bodies and networks has its own objectives and visions, they have the overall effect of making of the European space one where several instances find a voice, and what they share is precisely this ‘European dimension’. Their own rhetoric is often quite oriented to Europe and aligned to the now dominant ‘unity in diversity’ pattern. This is true not only in cases such as the European Cultural Foundation, which by statute ‘helps the arts contribute to a strong, united and diverse Europe built on shared cultural values’, but also in more thematic, sectoral networks. Certainly, they increasingly see themselves in this light, as the president of IETM, a wellestablished International Network of Contemporary Performing Artists (originally, called Informal European Theatre Meeting, today reaching beyond Europe), concludes in summing up a study on How Networking Works: ‘Networks are important carriers of change, and are probably making a greater contribution to European cohesion than many of the politically inspired and better funded initiatives of the European Union’ (Flood, 2001: 84). Or, as an observer puts it:

Plenty of associations and organisations are being established, many of which have the adjective European. . . . All these networks try to awaken the consciousness of the European citizen, to show him/her that he/she is part of a whole held together by a common cultural heritage. (Sticht, 2000: 61–2)


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Whilst a common view in political science argues that there is little evidence that these are the real objectives, beyond an instrumental attitude towards European organizations as a primary source of funds, and how far they are met, this view may come from the fact that quantitative evidence can be only partly satisfactory, as we still need to pin down what questions we should be asking in order to interpret a shifting situation. Indeed, some qualitative evidence in this respect does exist. In the related field of European networks co-operating on education initiatives, for instance, Yasemin Soysal has found that: All these conferencing activities and projects in effect create practitioners of Europe, who share objectives and discourse on European education. . . . The emphasis [is] invariably on a Europe constituted by dialogue, conflict resolution, tolerance, human rights and intercultural understanding. This [is] a Europe taken for granted: European project’s necessity and furtherance [are] not questioned. (Soysal, 2002: 272) It remains to be seen how the unchallenged value of Europeanization is actually interpreted by the different actors, how they inform, each one with their own focus and content, the rhetoric of ‘unity in diversity’.

2.4 Concluding remarks In this first part of the book we have seen how European identity is currently conceived in both academic and official terms, as well as promoted within European cultural policies, by both institutional and grassroots agencies. The rhetoric of ‘unity in diversity’ is now dominant; however, its ambiguity means that it can be instrumentalized in different ways, and its meaning is particularly dependent on the context and on the agency that is adopting it. Still, it favours a situation whereby, if there is no agreement on the actual content of European identity or on the meaning of Europeanization, this seems to be proportionally linked to an unchallenged and widespread agreement that they are positive values. Those who do want to challenge this have attacked ‘unity in diversity’ precisely for its ambiguity, lack of content and contradiction. However, in so doing they confirm its otherwise taken-for-grantedness and miss the point, which is its actual contribution to the furthering of a new discursive frame. This frame is based on the evolving notions of ‘unity’ and, in particular, of ‘diversity’, which have emerged here from the theoretical and the policy analysis of these first two chapters. As we

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have seen, in both EU and COE official documents, from framework declarations and conventions to those establishing policy programmes and framing the practices of cultural operators, two notions dominate and are commonly elided: culture as a way of life and culture as the production of artefacts and events. In particular in the early years of European integration, culture in the first sense was identified with national culture, following in this a common configuration that sees culture as a way of life connected to ‘thick’ identities, characterized internally by unity, and based externally on the reciprocal diversity of the various ‘cultures’. This notion prompts questions about the proportions of unity and diversity within the European cultural space: here diversity is a matter of external relations, being framed as an obstacle to economic rationalization. It is tolerated, seen as an element of richness, but also as a hindrance to successful communication, exchange and economic value. It is recognized as an unavoidable element, because it is linked to national ‘traditions and identities’, but as these are seen in essentialist and static terms, from the European perspective diversity so conceived remains a kind of necessary evil. However, thanks to the emphasis on the second notion of culture – culture as artefacts being produced and experienced – the dominant European rhetoric has progressively come to see diversity as an asset. Nevertheless, it has not renounced, as the shift in the concept would suggest, the connection with identity-building. Diversity is now celebrated; it is not the same diversity though, as it is now connected to culture in the more restricted, aesthetic sense. Here diversity is richness since it is about the multiplication of available cultural ‘goods’, whether high art masterpieces or popular ‘hits’. The interesting move by the European organizations is the appropriation for European identity of this latter sense of culture, more usually connected to a universal (or, for today’s popular culture, global) rather than identitarian connotation. Common critiques of European identity as too abstract, lofty, intellectual and rational, rather than affective, can be linked to this. These critiques are, however, a consequence of using the national template as a normative model; instead, we may need a new way of imagining the relationship between culture, identity and governance. In the dominant account of the national imagination, that relationship is based on a reduction of the particular to the universal, conflating the broad (‘anthropological’) and the restricted (‘aesthetic’) notion of culture as elements of a ‘civilization’, of which the state is the gatekeeper. Cultural policies, both liberal and dirigiste, are often legitimated as a defence of the national way of life (Lewis and Miller, 2003: 5).


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The nation-state has done this by clearly opting for unity and justifying the instrumentalization and regulation of culture as aesthetic artefacts (allegedly ends in themselves and ‘spontaneous’) in the name of culture as a way of life. This particular combination of culture and identity is not at the European organizations’ disposal, not only because of the persistence of nations, but because the very concepts of essentialist cultural unities today are questioned (Ifversen, 2002), as the review of both the academic and official narrative of European identity in chapter 1 shows. European institutions cannot follow the path of cultural homogenization and consensus that the nation-state so successfully imagined for itself (although really how successfully and at what cost is something that might be further investigated, as the new perspectives opened by Europeanization are suggesting). They cannot because their existence is based on its components (national and local), and thus on a delicate equilibrium between the drive for unity and concern for diversity. As a result, a constant invariant of official discourse on European identity is that its content is never made explicit (beyond some very general appeal to basic universal values) nor what is the common heritage at its basis, while putting at least as much emphasis on differences and on their being the specific richness of Europe. In its official EU incarnation ‘unity in diversity’ may imply the unity of a supranational framework over differences that are made explicit as mainly national and regional (those that are also represented by specific institutional actors within the EU). But if the EU may be the most influential actor in spreading the discourse of unity in diversity, it is certainly not the only one, and maybe not even the main one to provide interpretations of it. Therefore, the role that institutional identity-building through culture can play needs to be reconsidered, as it increasingly becomes less a matter of a monolithic cultural content trickling down from institutional (political and cultural) elites. European, and in particular the EU’s, official identity discourse and cultural initiatives are easily (and superficially) reduced to dangerous or pathetic attempts at mimicking the nation, and thus invite criticism for the contradictions they face. Maybe for this reason, critics have seemed content with ideology critique analysis. Having ‘unveiled’ the interests of the EU in maintaining a certain configuration – holding the national and local institutions at bay whilst increasingly deepening Europeanization – we think we have completed our analysis and proved that configuration ‘wrong’. Concealed within this there is probably a (false) assumption that the process of imagination is anyway false, and that unveiling in fact means destroying. This is ironic, because the

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whole concept of imagined community (Anderson, 1983) was conceived in order to stress the power of the social and cultural construction of reality. But more importantly, it prevents further analysis, beyond an ideology critique. The assumptions masked by mottoes such as unity in diversity certainly need to be analysed and linked to the institution’s interests; however, their interpretation and practical use does not descend directly from those interests. Moreover, institutional rhetoric and its interpretations may be contradictory without this making them ‘wrong’ (as analytical concepts would). They work, although at a more sophisticated level, especially within a reflexive and polymorphic process like Europeanization, as everyday, tacit heuristics. What should be addressed analytically is how they deal with contradictions (and what they perceive as such or otherwise), and above all, how they translate and transform in actual practices. An effort to address that is what guided my research on the European City of Culture programme and on the European Landscape Convention (COE), which I present in Parts II and III of this book.

Part II Being and Becoming: the European Capitals of Culture


3 A Simple Idea and a Vision: the ECOC Programme

The European City (then Capital) of Culture (ECOC) is one of the oldest and most successful of EU cultural initiatives. It is an annual title awarded by the EU to one or more European cities, intended as a macroevent that puts the selected city under the spotlight, with the double aim of providing a stage for local cultural assets as well as hosting events from the rest of Europe, thereby enhancing mutual understanding and awareness. It claims to be a venue for confrontation, debate and reflection, encouraging cultural exchanges and co-operation, very much like European cultural policies in general. In the already crowded field of cultural events in Europe, it has carved a secure and growing position for itself, thanks to its specificity and its flexibility; it has become a wellrecognized ‘brand’, which cities compete to stage as fiercely as they do for the Olympic Games or World Fairs (Evans, 2003). Urban historians have recently started to analyse it alongside other major urban events: ‘The European City of Culture programme has become the highest profile European Union-sponsored cultural event and, more generally, an important part of the international artistic calendar’ (Gold and Gold, 2005: 221). The ECOC can also be conceived as the EU’s most direct attempt, one that is both practical and symbolic, at substantiating a ‘European cultural space’, the fostering of which is, as we have seen, the overall, albeit ambivalent, objective of its cultural activity. Its focus on urban cultures fits well with an idea that is gaining momentum, in both theory and official discourse, of the key role and specificity of the modern European city as a social and cultural entity, often drawing on classic work by Max Weber, and seeing cities’ renewed position as sites of governance within Europeanization (Le Gales, 2002; Milner, 2007). The ECOC is part of this renewed interest in urban culture which has accompanied post-industrialization (cities are only mentioned in 79

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EU Treaties from Maastricht onwards). The programme is representative of EU cultural policy and more generally of the particular European policy style developed in the sector as it manifests that complex history and hybrid character that characterizes EU cultural action, even after Maastricht (see chapter 2). Indeed, and again as is the case with EU cultural policy in general, the ECOC’s heterogeneity and limited formalization has encouraged a dismissive attitude to it in scholarship on European issues. The programme is seen as little more than an empty honour, due to its limited financial support from the EU, and because of the almost complete autonomy given to the city in question. The following quote sums up well the dismissive and critical position that has been in the academic mainstream for some time: ‘Most attempts to create a European cultural identity are pathetic exercises in cultural engineering: the Eurovision Song Contest, Euro-Disney, the ECU, the annual European City of Culture . . . ’ (Delanty, 1995: 128). Political scientists focusing more directly on cultural policy seem to share this view, as these ‘symbolic’ actions of allegedly special European significance aimed at promoting European integration had, on the face of it, only a limited potential to actually do so. Some, such as Community-sponsored restoration schemes for national monuments, had little in the way of a tangible “European dimension” to begin with. Even the ‘European city of culture’ programme involved (and still involves) above all the use of Community funds to support local cultural projects, garnished with some Europewide tourism promotion. It lacks a strong conceptual link to European integration, let alone to specific Community policies and institutions. (Theiler, 2005: 63) However, a crucial point is so missed: what could be more Europeanizing than re-appropriating national monuments as European? To be represented as European is probably the utmost ‘European dimension’ a monument can carry. As for the ECOC, the programme reconceptualizes, and repositions, cities in a European space and history. ECOCs are not about the celebration of an essentialist European culture – that would be a faux pas the EU has learnt to avoid throughout the difficult history of its cultural policy – rather, ‘European’ qualifies the cities themselves, becoming part of their self-representation, of what they call themselves, and that is possibly even more significant than simply trying to compete with the nation in the appropriation of cultural

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contents, which maintains a clear advantage in that field. Indeed, we can discuss how successful that European reconceptualization of space and time has been, or can be, and for whom, but certainly to fail to grasp its relevance is to ignore what these actions quite openly are: symbolic policies trying to shape new representations and narratives informing new (actual) social realities and identities. Before we can ask how successful and widespread this is, we also need to ask what it means to be represented as European, how this is pursued and by whom. Starting as a modest affair in 1985, the ECOC is now increasingly well established. Since the early 1990s in particular, it has attracted considerable public and media attention.1 As we shall see, this may arguably be linked to the EU maintaining a low profile. Among those analyses that have started to focus on the ECOC,2 some have come to recognize this, at least in passing: [t]he initiative was well timed. The rise of culture on the political agenda resonated with the belief that closer European economic and political integration required associated measures to show the cultural affinities between the peoples of Europe . . . . Tactically it [the ECOC] combined community-level cooperation with the participation of regional and local authorities, thereby involving ordinary people in a European project at a time when few such projects seemed to have relevance for the lives of the public. (Gold and Gold, 2005: 222–3) This is a key observation as it grasps how the EU has been able to stimulate an initiative that could be represented as bottom-up, at the same time finding a way to bring lay people into direct contact with an EU programme, and without it appearing as a top-down invasion of the sensitive sphere of cultural identities. However, this sphere is, of course, one of the ECOC’s main targets. This will become apparent when we examine the programme’s policy framework and implementation (section 3.1). How the programme has been realized in the sequence of selected cities to date represents not only a cultural map of Europe but also a reconceptualization of the cities as European. The programme’s minimal regulation and EU financing has resulted in an array of different approaches and contents from city to city: this has been seen as what makes them typically ‘European’. They are represented as an instance of what the ‘richness and diversity of the common cultural heritage of Europe’ (as the official discourse goes) currently means to the Europeans, beyond the level of political elites.

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In order to analyse this we will not only consider official documents and reports, but also try to grasp the meaning of the new cultural map of Europe that is thus delineated, with the support of the direct voices of some of the people involved.3 This chapter also considers the context in which the ECOC has normally been studied, that is, within studies of culture-led urban regeneration or, more generally, within urban policies and impact studies (section 3.2). This shows how an exclusive concentration on the socio-economic impact misses a key aspect of the programme – one that could also help overcome some of the difficulties in measuring its impact, in understanding the different agencies’ rationales and in interpreting diversity – that is, to consider it for its symbolic, identity-building dimension, foregrounding issues of how the loose ‘European’ frame is filled with contents at the local level, and how these two levels, as well as others (such as the national), interact (section 3.3).

3.1 A new cultural map of Europe ‘It is time for our [the Culture Ministers’] voice to be heard as loud as that of the technocrats. Culture, art and creativity are not less important than technology, commerce and the economy.’ This statement, formulated in 1983 by the then Greek Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri, is often quoted, in another example of the mythologization of Europe (true to reality this time), in accounts of how the European City of Culture came about (e.g. in Myerscough, 1994: 1). The idea of an annual award to a European city was in fact launched in 1983 by Mercouri in Athens. This was at one of the first informal gatherings of the member states’ Culture Ministers, seizing on the first signs of possible developments for cultural action at the European level, which had also received an important stimulus that year with the Solemn Declaration on the European Union. No official account of the ECOC fails to acknowledge Mercouri’s inspirational role: ‘[t]he conception was not the result of a carefully developed and strategically managed plan, but like much of art was born from a simple idea and a far-sighted vision’ (Palmer, 1994: 3) – that is, allegedly not as an engineered, top-down imposition, but as something emerging spontaneously from society, incarnating, through comparison with ‘art itself’, that very creativity the initiative is supposed to foster. In Mercouri’s much quoted statement we recognize the opposition between a technocratic Europe, with its difficult and complex policies and regulations, and a cultural, everyday Europe ‘of the citizens’, a distinction that had been introduced since the EC’s first forays into cultural policy.

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If the mythologized origins of the ECOC recall the equally mythical origins of European cultural policy more generally, it is also true that the ECOC is a good example of EU cultural policy in general. In this respect, a number of more specific recurring aspects can be singled out, with regard to policy framework and its implementation. At the policy-making level, these aspects are the ECOC’s ongoing and incremental development and flexible character, especially as far as its cultural contents are concerned. The programme has undergone several reforms, having being introduced as an intergovernmental activity in 1985 before becoming an activity of the European Commission’s Directorate General X in 2005. The idea stemmed at the intergovernmental level, that is, not from a supranational institution within the EC, and was launched well before cultural competence was officially established. It was then progressively enshrined, after Maastricht, within Kaleidoscope first and the culture framework programmes subsequently. Within the Culture programme it is now classified among its ‘emblematic actions’ or ‘actions of special European significance’, those that receive the smaller share of funds but that are charged with more ambitious aims. The ECOC’s official mission is in fact ‘to highlight the richness and diversity of European cultures and the features they share, as well as to promote greater mutual understanding between European citizens’. Its very name has been alternating between ‘European City of Culture’ and ‘European Capital of Culture’, the latter being the one currently favoured. Reforms have not really made the programme any less loose however, at least so far. The EU confers the title, but only a small fund to the selected city or cities each year accompanies it. So, also as a result of the ECOC being mainly funded by the city involved, it is both designed and implemented locally and autonomously. (For a synthetic representation of this articulated policy see Table 3.1; for more detail on the policy evolution see Box 3.1.) Turning to the level of implementation, we see that here too complexity characterizes the European Cities of Culture, which have all been very different in scale and scope, objectives and means. The festivals set up by the cities have become increasingly long, complex and ambitious, and now mostly last throughout the whole year and include initiatives that would not come within the ambit of cultural policy as narrowly defined. Since Maastricht, the ECOC features as one of the main ‘direct’ actions outside the predominant approach of funding transnational co-operation and networks. However, the ECOC actually reproduces that same logic within itself, not least because, as we shall see, many cities fill their cultural ECOC programmes by scheduling and funding events developed by independent cultural operators and

84 Table 3.1 The programme European City/Capital of Culture (ECOC) Policy

Cities

Countries

1985–1996

Athens 1985 Florence 1986 Amsterdam 1987 Berlin 1988 Paris 1989 Glasgow 1990 Dublin 1991 Madrid 1992 Antwerp 1993 Lisbon 1994 Luxembourg 1995 Copenhagen 1996

Greece Italy Netherlands Germany France United Kingdom Ireland Spain Belgium Portugal Luxembourg Denmark

Thessaloniki 1997 Stockholm 1998 Weimar 1999 Avignon, Bergen, Bologna, Bruxelles, Helsinki, Cracow, Prague, Reykjavik and Santiago de Compostela 2000 Porto and Rotterdam 2001 Bruges and Salamanca 2002 Graz 2003 Genova and Lille 2004

Greece Sweden Germany France, Norway, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Finland, Czech Republic, Iceland and Spain

Cork 2005 Patras 2006 Luxembourg and Sibiu 2007 Liverpool and Stavanger 2008 Linz and Vilnius 2009 Essen, Pécs and Istanbul 2010 Turku and Tallinn 2011 Guimarães and Maribor 2012 Marseille and Kosice 2013 −2014 −2015

Ireland Greece Luxembourg and Romania United Kingdom and Norway Austria and Lithuania Germany, Hungary and Turkey Finland and Estonia Portugal and Slovenia

Resolution of the Council of the Culture Ministers, 1985 (O.J. C 153, 22/06/1985). Intergovernmental action, turns among member states.

1997–2004 Conclusions of the Council of the Culture Ministers, 1992 (O.J. C 151, 16/06/92). Intergovernmental action, possible multiple nominations, programme open to non EU-members.

2005–2019 Decision of the European Parliament and Council, 1999, 2006 (Decision 1419/1999/EC; from 2010 substituted by Decision 1622/2006/EC). Community programme (now officially ‘European Capital of Culture’) managed by DGX of the European Commission. Turns among member states, old and new accession countries nominate cities in parallel; programme open to non EU-members until 2010.

−2016 −2017 −2018 −2019

Portugal and Netherlands Belgium and Spain Austria Italy and France

France and Slovakia Sweden and Latvia Belgium and Czech Republic Spain and Poland Denmark and Cyprus Netherlands and Malta Italy and Bulgaria

The ECOC Programme

Box 3.1 An example of the EU’s evolving cultural action: ECOC’s policy The document originally establishing the programme in 1985 is similar to more general ones in the sector: ‘the “European City of Culture” event should be the expression of a culture which, in its historical emergence and contemporary development, is characterized by having both common elements and a richness born of diversity’ (O.J. C 153, 22/06/1985). Once again, the ‘unity in diversity’ rhetoric informs it. As a pre-Maastricht initiative, it took the form of an intergovernmental agreement. It is the European Council that decides what city to select each year, turns should be taken among member states and specific cities put forward for the title by the respective national authorities. The programme started in 1985 and, in accordance with the establishing resolution, full autonomy with regard to the events substantiating it is left to the cities, in terms of cultural programming and managing structure. The idea is that of cultural exchange, here between the city and Europe: promoting the city’s cultural assets in of Europe and hosting events from the rest of Europe, and in so doing creating an image of a cultural Europe. Supervision from Brussels remains minimal in all phases of the programme, with the idea that spaces of interpretations should be left, so that the initiative can be adapted to the needs and objectives of the cities and countries involved. Indeed, approaches have varied from case to case, from the selection procedures among cities at the national level, to the type of managing structure set up for the event, to the duration, scope and scale of cultural programmes. The role of the European institutions ends basically once the title has been awarded and a small fund has been set aside for it by the European Commission. This has covered, during the first ten years of implementation, on average 1 per cent of overall budgets for the realization of ‘European projects’ through international collaborations. However, the European character of the projects, as well as of the whole year, is also left to the interpretation of the city (Myerscough, 1994). At the beginning of the 1990s some interesting modifications were introduced. In particular, it was established that, after the first round of cities (1985–96) turns would be abandoned and

85

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Box 3.1 (Continued) participation opened up so that ‘other European countries basing themselves on the principles of democracy, pluralism and the rule of law should be able to nominate cities for the event’ (O.J. C 162, 03/07/1990), an initiative which followed the ‘widespread interest in holding the event of European cities both inside and outside the Community’ (ibid.).4 Moreover, criteria for selection were set: ‘the Ministers considered it appropriate, given that the field of choice of European City of Culture will be much wider after 1996, to set out some criteria for their own guidance and that of interested European states’ (O.J. C 151, 16/06/92).5 The Council also welcomes the submission of ‘accompanying dossiers’, from national governments on behalf of candidate cities. However, the title remains a political choice taken at the level of national representatives. As regards European financial involvement, this also remains minimal even if, with the introduction of the new cultural programmes after Maastricht, it has constantly increased, attaining only 1.5 per cent on average of total expenditure in the second decade of implementation (Palmer/Rae, 2004). Moreover, the expansion of the initiative has made it possible to attract EU funds from programmes that are not strictly cultural, such as those for urban regeneration, education or tourism. This second reform phase ended in 2004. Meanwhile, following the TEU’s new legal framework, in 1999 it was established that the programme should become a direct action of DGX within the Culture programme and be known as the ‘European Capital of Culture’ (Decision 1419/1999/EC; amended by Decision 649/2005/EC; from 2010 substituted by Decision 1622/2006/EC). As a result, the ECOC has undergone a process of formalization with regard to all its phases, partly limiting the celebrated flexibility characterizing its twenty years as an intergovernmental initiative. Subsequent decisions continued to reform the programme, mainly addressing difficulties and ambiguities in procedures for candidature and selection, and following recommendations in the second evaluation report commissioned by the EU and advice from stakeholders in the sector (Palmer/Rae, 2004, vol. 1: 22–4). In short, the sequential nomination among member countries has been reintroduced, but access to the programme has been constantly amended. Parallel nominations are now the norm: first,

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the programme was open to cities from ‘third European countries’, then a place was reserved for cities from the 2004 accession countries to be nominated in parallel with older member states starting in 2009; finally (so far) it was decided that only EU countries, old and new, should be ECOCs, suggesting the possibility of reviving the European Cultural Month programme for interested non-EU countries. The selection procedures were also reformed in 2006, with effect from 2010, by introducing closer monitoring of the proposal, particularly ‘in order to enhance their European dimension’ (O.J. L 304, 3/11/2006), in consideration that ‘[t]o guarantee the European added value of the action, a monitoring phase after the designation is needed’ (ibid.). For instance, the development of a linkage between the programmes of cities sharing the title the same year is now formally required. What receives most EU attention is the dossier accompanying the candidature, which is now compulsory and should contain: ‘a cultural project of European dimension, based principally on cultural cooperation, in accordance with the objectives and action provided for by Article 151 of the Treaty’ (O.J. L, 166 1/7/99). In particular, it should (among other things) ‘specify how the nominated city intends: to highlight artistic movements and styles shared by Europeans which it has inspired or to which it has made a significant contribution . . . to promote dialogue between European cultures and those from other parts of the world’ (ibid.). The selection, as public accounts often stress, is no longer the expression of political intergovernmental agreements, but of the evaluation of a selection panel composed of six national representatives and seven ‘European independent experts’ appointed each year, making their recommendation on the basis of the dossier to the European institutions, the Council still being the organ entitled to designate cities as ECOCs.6

encouraging transnational co-operation, thereby following, by isomorphism we might say, the EU’s own approach. (On isomorphism, see the neo-institutional approach to organizational analysis, first established by DiMaggio and Powell, 1983.) In fact, the resulting heterogeneity across the years has been readily phrased by the EU as perfectly incarnating the unity in diversity of Europe. Also the cautious balancing of the European against the local, in order not to incur any opposition from

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national sensibilities whilst at the same time not renouncing a highly symbolically charged rhetoric of Europeanness, is representative of EU cultural policy in general. External commentators may perceive unity in diversity as a poor, contradictory and empty slogan, but the people actually involved in the ECOC proved to be both more positive and more reflexive about the official ECOC mission that incarnates it, showing both condescension towards official rhetoric, and the realization that ways to address diversity among and within cultures are genuinely needed. As the director of a new radio production developed jointly by several stations in a number of European countries within the ECOCs in 2000 said: ‘Well, if I put myself in the position of the EU, they can’t do otherwise, one has to be a bit realistic, and I think it is inevitable, if you want to have a cultural discourse in Europe then you have to say “in this we are similar, in this we are different”, at best you can say “how can we be more alike?” And already in creating contacts you make yourselves more similar.’ When asked, my interviewees within the ECOCs agreed that the objective was well formulated, some expressed some impatience with its celebratory tone and some thought it had not yet really been achieved, but no one dismissed it as wrong or seemed to find fault with it on the grounds that it was contradictory; instead, they all seemed to back it as ‘rightful ambition’. Also its emptiness, which some acknowledge, is seen more as a character than as the absence of one, and as enabling more active involvement in the process of building or finding that content. Like the official discourse itself, the cultural operators I interviewed sometimes resorted to building metaphors: ‘[The official ECOC mission] is basically right, and the terms “diversity” and “mutual” are telling me, that it will be an endless chain of small personal bricks to build this house’, as the curator of a project that circulated in many ECOCs told me. And indeed, although most thought that the EU should have been more involved in the ECOC, most specified, not surprisingly, that by this they meant greater financial support, but that they did not expect or wish for more involvement in the actual cultural choices. Therefore, the flexibility and evolution of the programme too was viewed positively. If the first cities to be awarded the title gave the impression of a mere celebration of cultural heritage excellence, according to some interviewees, more recent ECOCs demonstrated it to be more a means to both acknowledge and even stimulate more ‘living’ cultures. Indeed, if we look at the history of the ECOCs, we see how, in the numerous cities that have earned the title so far (see Table 3.1) a new

The ECOC Programme 1

EUROPEAN CITIES AND CAPITALS OF CULTURE

2 3 4

22

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 43

14

20

18 37

15

14

44

16

6

17 18

7 32

19 12

36

20

39

21 22

3 25 28 31

40

9 16

24 15

11 34

5

23

4

25 21

26

24

27

48

28

38

29

29 23

46

35

45

17

26

31

30 47

27 10

30

41

32

19

33

2 8

34 42

35 36

13

37 38 39

33

1

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Figure 3.1

89

Athens1985 Florence1986 Amsterdam1987 Berlin1988 Paris1989 Glasgow1990 Dublin 1991 Madrid1992 Antwerp 1993 Lisbon 1994 Luxembourg 1995 Copenhagen 1996 Thessaloniki 1997 Stockholm 1998 Weimar 1999 Brussels 2000 Avignon 2000 Bergen 2000 Bologna 2000 Helsinki 2000 Prague 2000 Reykjavik 2000 Santiago de Composlela 2000 Cracow 2000 Rotterdam 2001 Porto 2001 Salamanca 2002 Bruges 2002 Graz 2003 Genoa 2004 Lille 2004 Cork 2005 Patras 2006 Luxembourg 2007 Sibiu 2007 Liverpool 2008 Stavanger 2008 Line 2009 Vilnius 2009 Essen 2010 Pécs 2010 Istanbuol 2010 Turku 2011 Tallinn 2011 Guimarães 2012 Mazibov 2012 Marseille 2013 Kosice 2013

ECOCs 1985–2013

Source: Adapted from Palmer/Rae (2004, vol. 1: 259)

cultural map of Europe can be traced, one that is constantly expanding and filling, much like the EU itself, as Figure 3.1 shows. From the very beginning of the programme it was clear that it aimed to play a key role in the ritual construction of Europe, and in the reconceptualization of its cultural roots. The first ECOC was Athens in 1985. This was certainly in part related to the initiative being the idea of a Greek minister, but above all it reactivated the narrative of the origins of Europe in the ‘cradle’ of ancient Greek culture. This is confirmed by the following ECOC, Florence, in 1986. The words of the mayor of Florence at the time of its nomination reveal the narrative behind this sequence: If the roots of European civilisation are in classical Athens, the modern world that put man back at the centre of his own history was born in Florence with humanism and the Renaissance, thanks to the

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rediscovery of Greek civilisation. This has been one more reason to be happy to follow Athens in this programme. (Bogianckino, 1987: 16) In Athens and Florence, great emphasis was put on highly ritualized opening ceremonies, with local and national authorities, as well as the Culture Ministers of EC members states, attending. Grandiloquent speeches of the kind just cited were made, with Monnet’s new cultural start myth often being evoked. For instance, at the opening ceremony of Athens 1985 the then French President, François Mitterrand, concluded his speech by saying: ‘The first year of Europe begins today’ (reported in Myerscough, 1994: 15). The following year, Melina Mercouri herself declared in Florence: ‘Greece would like to thank Florence and Italy for the extraordinary welcome extended to its exhibitions, which retrace the historical development of European culture and reveal, perhaps for the first time, direct, documented links between our two civilisations’ (Mercouri, 1987: 12). Athens 1985 set itself the ambitious task of allowing ‘every citizen to participate in the formation of a European consciousness’. Equally grand, Florence not only wanted to improve the image of the city but also to ‘bring Florence to Europe, and Europe to Florence’, creating a slogan that many other ECOC have adapted and used since. Having represented two of the classic steps of the ‘European spirit’ in their birthplaces, Athens and Florence, things got more complicated: in the following years there is not such a clear rhetoric, though political and institutional significance to the title can still be traced. Amsterdam 1987 explicitly used the title to promote support of the EC, to get the Dutch used to a Europe of culture by analysing ‘the cultural identity of the various countries of Europe and how they influence each other’. The step might have gone a bit too far, and a public debate on whether this constituted consensus manipulation accompanied the event, with accusations that the Common Market was being advocated under a cultural patina. Paris 1989 really wanted and was awarded the title during the year of the bicentennial of the French Revolution (only to let the grandiose celebrations of 1789 overshadow the ECOC). Dublin 1991 had tried to be ECOC to coincide with Ireland holding the EC presidency (but failed narrowly however), to underline its belonging to the European ensemble. Similarly, West Berlin 1988 aimed at an early nomination in order to lay claim to its belonging to the Community, something that was at the time still contested by the Soviet Union. The idea was easing the relationship between East and West and overcoming political

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divisions through intercultural dialogue: the theme of its programme was interdisciplinarity, significantly described as a ‘metaphorical falling of barriers’. Over a decade later, and after the reunification of Germany, Weimar was ECOC in 1999, following an idea born at the fall of the Berlin Wall, and pointing to the readmission of East Germany to the western world (Roth and Frank, 2000). These are not isolated cases, for the title has often been used a symbol of belonging: for Madrid 1992 it meant acknowledging Spain’s return to democracy, for Stockholm 1998, selected in 1993 when Sweden was not yet a member state, it was part of the rites de passage leading up to membership; and the same can be said for the year 2000 for candidate countries – Czech Republic and Poland – with Prague and Cracow among the ECOCs nominated that year (see chapter 4). This has been even more the case since the turn of the century. Turkey, for example, nominated Istanbul for 2010 claiming that (in the words of the chairman of the delegates presenting the candidature to the EU) ‘The candidacy of Istanbul for ECOC 2010 should be regarded as a sign of our commitment to the cultural convergence of Turkish civic society with the European Union’ (reported in Demir, 2006). Indeed, the supporting document argues that Istanbul should be regarded as a ‘bridge, connecting Europe to its East. It is a living example of the meeting of civilisations. It has been at the crossroads of European civilisations for centuries and it has learned to “live differences”’. In short, the title of ECOC is, or at least aspires to work as, a mobilizing metaphor (Shore and Wright, 1997), to cement a new status or accelerate a desired one. However, the strict link with the institutional level and with the enactment of European rituals within the programme itself seems to have faded over time, overshadowed by the very success of the ECOC as a cultural event. As a general trend, with the progressive consolidation of the programme, cities have increasingly used the autonomy left by its limited codification, notwithstanding the described increased complexities of procedures, which has more to do with institutionalization itself – and of pressure from stakeholders from previous ECOC – than with the more active role of the EU in the event.7 This has led to the programme’s objectives shifting and becoming more aligned with equally shifting approaches in urban cultural policies (see section 3.2). Closing and opening ceremonies with all the European authorities parading may continue, but generally official protocol is increasingly at the margins of a cultural event of growing importance, with EU representatives in particular maintaining and even intensifying their absence, favouring the image of a local event of European reach. As the celebratory and ritual aspect of the first ECOC festivals fades into the background, the link

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between the ECOC and European integration becomes looser. If the official and media discourse surrounding the ECOC still does recur to grand European narratives, these tend to be more and more phrased not in direct connection to the development of the EU, but with a wider, and more undefined, ‘European cultural space’. Another trait is the focus on Europe’s relation with ‘the rest of the world’ (as recommended in Palmer/Rae 2004, vol. 1: 23). A seemingly paradoxical configuration appears, where the growing importance of the ECOC, and of EU cultural policy in general, is aligned with the receding presence of the EU in the events and an even more evanescent definition of the ‘European dimension’ of the initiatives. The recent reforms outlined in Box 3.1 confirm that although more formalization has been introduced, especially in the selection and preparatory phase, there is still very little involvement on the part of the EU in the event itself. The EU does indeed call for a stronger focus on ‘European added value’, but so far it has always been satisfied with what the cities have wanted to define as such. It will be interesting to follow the programme after 2013 when the new selection and monitoring system is fully in place and the Commission has to officially respond after each ECOC. As for the programme so far, that ambivalence can be found in what constitutes the primary source of data for the EU, namely the two evaluative studies commissioned by the EU to assess the first and second decades of the programme (Myerscough, 1994; Palmer/Rae, 2004). In the first, assessing the years 1985–94, a blurred picture emerges with respect to the ‘European focus’. This is said to have been consistent, even if reservations are made about its role in the programmes, which could have been more emphasized. In the concluding remarks on a ‘Common European culture?’ (the question mark is in the text), T. S. Eliot is quoted: ‘the cultural health of Europe requires two conditions: that the culture of each country be unique and that the different cultures recognise the relation between them’ (Myerscough, 1994: 40), noting, however, that the ECOCs have achieved more in highlighting differences than in bringing the European dimension to the fore. However, what are sought are not ‘formula approaches, taking examples from each member state [that] have rarely proved artistically valuable and should be viewed with some caution’ (ibid.: 20). It is rather on ‘cultural networking’ and international exchanges that hopes are placed: ‘The international visits . . . were a practical contribution to “making the cultural unity of Europe” ’ (ibid.). This is not surprising, and is in line with the EU cultural policy style in general, that is, based on the fostering of European collaboration and the working together of various

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sub-European subjects on common cultural projects. In the words of a European Commission official, interviewed following an on-site seminar to launch the new Culture 2000 programme in Bologna when it was ECOC in 2000: ‘We are looking more for a high level of co-operation than a “European” theme. Many of the projects we support look at regional/local culture, but are promoting them at a European level.’ This allows a European dimension to be claimed without ever having to single out what constitutes a ‘common cultural heritage’. The more recent study, evaluating the ECOC’s second decade (1995–2004), which examined 21 cities both within and beyond EU member countries, maintains this approach and this ambivalent position with regard to the European focus. Compared to the first study, it seems both more sceptical about what has been done and more ambitious for the future, confident of the success of the ECOC as a cultural event. On the one hand, the celebration of diversity is now established, not as a ‘minor evil’ but as an asset: ‘The richness but also the challenge of ECOC is that there is no agreed formula for a cultural programme, and the unique historical, economic, social and political context of each city cannot be ignored’ (Palmer/Rae, 2004, vol. 1: 14). On the other, the conclusion is that: ‘The cultural dimension of ECOC has been overshadowed by political ambitions and other primarily non-cultural interests and agendas. The European dimension has not been a primary focus, and the potential of ECOC has not been realised as a means of promoting European integration and cooperation’ (ibid.: 23). These indeterminate official evaluations are reflected by contrasting assessments of the programme’s relevance in the scholarly literature: some consider the programme to be hardly linked to any sense of Europeanization, others fundamentally disagree. Both can find supporting evidence. As we have seen, the first position is backed by the fact that the programme’s own growth does seem to have loosened the link with European integration strictly speaking, and thus with the EU. However, it is also true – and this is more in favour of the second position – that the more general notion of a ‘European cultural space’ as something that already exists, and not only in relation to the EU, is what gives the ECOC its meaning, making it successful in a field where competition for ‘branding’ is very high. To proceed in the interpretation of this blurred picture, we need to take a closer look at individual ECOC programmes and rationales, and their evolution. This will be done in chapter 4, but in what follows we will focus first on the context in which organizing cities and scholars alike have mainly considered the ECOC, that is within urban policies and in terms of

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(direct) impact, and then on the much neglected European (symbolic) dimension.

3.2 ECOC and culture-led urban regeneration Represented as a local event, in the limited but growing literature on the subject, the ECOC is evaluated mainly for its local impact, with the heuristic devices created for urban cultural policies and leisure studies. In particular, a currently dominant approach phrases these as driven, since the late 1980s, by culture-led urban regeneration goals. The two official evaluation reports adopt this perspective. The first, written by John Myerscough, one of the leading economists in this approach, and strongly supported by Glasgow 1990 which first adopted a regeneration strategy, has indeed been a key factor in framing the ECOC in these terms. The second report – edited by Robert Palmer, former director of Glasgow 1990, Brussels 2000 and now director of the COE’s Directorate of Culture, Cultural and Natural Heritage – consolidated the approach. Single ECOC’s reports, when they are more than glossy final catalogues, often adopt this stance, with the impact on tourism increasingly seen as the key indicator. In extreme synthesis, this approach can be seen as the third one to dominate local cultural policies across (mostly Western) Europe in the post-war period (Bianchini and Parkinson, 1993). The first one, covering the period between the 1950s and 1960s, aimed at the allegedly politically neutral promotion of ‘high art’, and of access to it. The definition of culture that underlies it is restricted to ‘high culture’. The second period, basically covering the 1970s, is associated with the widespread trend of decentralization of governance in Western Europe and to a new role of local, especially urban, policies: cultural policy becomes an instrument for political and social objectives, in particular in the shape of greater access to culture for disadvantaged groups, making cultural initiatives a means to obtain consensus. Here the definition of culture is broader and challenges in particular the distinction between high and low art, which formed the basis of the previous phase. Cultural policy becomes cognate with social policies, being aimed at the reconstruction of an active local social fabric. This is when a top-down ‘democratization of culture’ paradigm gives way to a multidimensional ‘cultural democracy’, according to a distinction already encountered in the COE cultural policy discourse. The distinction is more easily drawn about policy rationales and objectives than about actual outputs and it is best conceived in terms of different emphases rather than radical shifts.

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The two models combine and sometimes conflict, with the expanding definition of culture being functional to the inclusion of different and increasingly far-reaching and extra-cultural objectives. This also applies to the shift towards the third approach, which emerged slowly during the 1980s, and still dominates the field today. The latter sees cultural policy in terms of urban regeneration, with various emphases from more exclusively economic (city marketing) to more encompassing (cultural planning) variants. Whilst allegedly also attempting to combine the previous two, this approach is characterized by a major shift to objectives of development and the re-qualification of cities in an increasingly post-industrial scenario: gradually, the language of subventions and access gives way to that of investment and the promotion of cities’ image. This implies a concept of culture that is as wide as possible, often referred to in its ‘anthropological’ sense, referring not only to the arts, high and low, but also to traditions, customs and values – in short, a whole way of life. The focus on economic impacts means that this wide definition of culture can be at the same time reduced to an expanded notion of what constitutes ‘cultural consumptions’.8 The ECOC was introduced at a time when the culture-led urban regeneration approach was about to emerge, as industrial production was becoming secondary, in substance and representation, and European cities started to be reimagined in their role as cultural centres, mainly inhabited by the ‘service class’. Indeed, this perspective when applied to the ECOC allows us to make sense of and single out a common trend in what, as we have seen, is otherwise represented as the extreme heterogeneity of the ECOC’s history. As urban cultural policies shifted from allegedly ‘pure’, high-culture objectives to social and then economic regeneration, the ECOC shifted from being a celebration of the cultural excellence of major capitals (in an elite culture sense) to being used as an instrument for development of the cultural capital of marginal cities (Booth and Boyle, 1993). Greg Richards, for instance, analysing the programme up to the turn of the century, claims that the initiative has moved from ‘cultural objectives’ to those of economics and regeneration: the history of the programme in the 1980s and 1990s shows a growing emphasis on its economic impact, or more generally in terms of a city’s image, basically the typical objective of the city marketing approach (Richards, 2000). The first ECOCs, in particular Athens and Florence, produced limited cultural festivals, both in time (they lasted only a few months) and scope. The grandiloquent, and flexible, official aims were restrictively interpreted, adopting a notion of culture basically

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limited to high arts, as the choice of two cities so rich in that kind of cultural heritage made of the ‘great works’ of European culture already seemed to suggest. This approach can thus be classified in the first age or phase of urban cultural policies, the promotion of high culture and of access to it, a few ECOCs also adopting some aspects of the second age, especially in terms of addressing ‘multiculturalism’ (a key theme of Amsterdam 1987, for instance). However, as, at a more general level, the idea of cultural policy as a means for economic development and city marketing was spreading, the ECOC also adopted this new approach, as is evident in the very choice of industrial or post-industrial cities in decline and in need of ‘regeneration’. Glasgow 1990 is commonly considered the turning point, the Scottish city clearly not being a cultural capital in the same sense as the previous ECOCs (Athens, Florence, Paris, and so on). Far from being seen as detrimental, this has often stimulated positive accounts, thanks to Glasgow’s success in assessing and communicating the positive impact of the year as ECOC: ‘Glasgow’s year as European City of Culture in 1990 is widely perceived as an event both marking and precipitating a renaissance in perceptions of the city’ (Reason, 2006: 179). With Glasgow ’90 there is a shift from celebratory festivals to fully fledged annual programmes, of wide and ambitious scope and scale. Glasgow’s bidding dossier (which beat the eight other UK cities competing for the title) was in fact based on the idea that the event would bring about regeneration and valorization, and especially on a declared ability to raise private sponsorships. Recent nominations confirm this trend: in the first years of the new century, Rotterdam, Porto, Genoa, Lille and Liverpool are all cities not traditionally considered as ‘cultural capitals’, and all have based their programme on substantial regeneration plans (García, 2005). Indeed, ECOC cultural programmes are now characterized by this scale: the average number of projects in the programmes in its second decade was approximately 500, and most ECOCs used an anthropological definition of culture including in their programmes events related to sport, food, crafts and local traditions. Innovative and contemporary culture is also increasingly central as a way to attract attention and debate (Palmer/Rae, 2004, vol. 1: 16).9 It is this emphasis on urban regeneration, and in particular on culture as instrumental to economic ends, that has been criticized as far from the original, institutional objectives of the programme. According to Corijn and Van Praet (1994), when established, the programme’s double objective was purely cultural: to communicate the culture of one city, creating exchange with other European countries, on the one hand, and

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on the other, to create, via these means, an image of European culture as a whole. With the evolution and extension of the programme, in particular since the 1990s, this objective has been progressively abandoned in favour of an instrumental use, in terms of economic spill-over. The problem with this instrumentalization of culture – which has also been called culture’s multiple instrumentalities (Barnett, 2001) – is that it does not often seem to work, and in fact many critical analysts have pointed to the rapid decline of positive economic impact of even the success story par excellence, Glasgow 1990 (Gold and Gold, 2005: 227–31). However, although assessing the success or pointing to underlying contradictions emerging from the instrumentalization and promotion of culture, which haunts cultural policy in general (Hitters, 2000) is the important contribution of impact studies, they seem ill-equipped to address the ‘cultural impact’, even on the rare occasion when they try to do so. As even some of those who have contributed to the definition of this approach have started to point out, impact measures have little to say with regard to softer, longer-term social and above all cultural ‘effects’, a very important dimension of which is the role for self-representation, public imaginary and more generally identity (Bianchini and Weiss-Sussex, 2004; Evans and Shaw 2004). Having identified a gap, there is still very little on this dimension, focusing on the local imaginary and identity (on the long-term legacy of Glasgow 1990 on city image and local identity, see García 2005, discussed in section 3.3), and totally ignoring the European dimension, which, however difficult to define, is the raison d’être of the programme, its symbolic, cultural relevance. This debate partly misses the point because it lacks a fundamental distinction: that between direct, ‘substantial’ objectives and impacts (the only ones addressed), and the symbolic ones, which are ignored. However, ‘cultural’ aspects are precisely of the latter type. The policy’s (in this case the ECOC’s) dual aspect – direct and symbolic – is conflated with just the first and only the ‘substantial’ impact is considered, especially the economic or ‘social’, seeing the latter in terms of job creation and the like, for which objective, hard indicators can be set up and measured. When attempts to consider the cultural impact are made, the very fact that the term ‘impact’ is uncritically maintained reveals that the distinction is missing, and that if consideration is given to tangible cultural impacts (such as the opening of new sites for cultural activities, and the like), the symbolic dimension proper, reaching the level of how reality and identities are framed culturally, is still not in view.10 This can be shown by reconsidering the original official objective of the ECOC

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mentioned above. That objective is double also in the sense that whilst the first aspect – to circulate cultural events – is direct and its impact can be measured, the second – to create an image of Europe and mobilize it as a resource – is a symbolic aim, one that addresses the structure of meanings available to people in drawing up their codes of conduct and identities, the shared understandings through which specific contexts are framed; as such it is both the ‘aim’ and rationale of the policy. Simple, direct causality may not be identified, as the ‘recipients’ not only consume meanings produced intentionally by policy-makers, but actively contribute to their production. In the ECOC in particular, the distinction between its direct and symbolic dimension is also important because it draws attention to the fact that they do not necessarily move in the same direction and can combine in different ways. Urban regeneration can be achieved in European terms as much as a high arts festival; the two aspects obviously relate to and affect each other, but there is no direct proportionality between them. Without distinguishing the symbolic dimension, the ECOC programme appears as a confused alternation of different agencies’ claims and objectives. It is only when separating the two levels that it appears how the symbolic dimension is consistently ‘European’, in all the phases, whilst other instances, the local and national in particular (but also the art world’s stakeholders, minority groups, and so on), compete for setting and pursuing the more direct objectives. This has meant that the role of the European dimension does not vary proportionally with the relevance of cities as cultural capitals. If one of the arguments against the idea of a common European heritage is that it can only build on high art – and thus, so the argument goes, has only a very limited hold, especially in terms of identity-building – ECOC’s history disproves this, as we shall see in section 3.3. The increasing focus on urban regeneration, and thus on a broad concept of culture, especially on its popular and anthropological dimension which can be seen as instrumental to social and economic goals, rather than as an end in themselves as is the case of high art, has not resulted in a smaller European dimension. As an example, once again, Glasgow 1990 was based on a broad notion of culture (‘everything that makes Glasgow what it is’) and claimed a European identity (‘Glasgow looks like a European city. And feels like one’ was the motto). True, what the ‘European’ dimension may actually mean, what role it may be called on to play for each specific city, varies, and what is interesting is precisely to analyse how the European dimension works under different conditions, how the two dimensions co-evolved.

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3.3 The European dimension To look at the ECOC from its European angle, seen in its relation with the shifting approaches of urban policies addressed in section 3.2, is very useful to substantiate our understanding of the European cultural space, something that is difficult to bring down to earth by policy analysis alone (chapter 2). As we have seen, the official evaluations of the ECOC are rather dismissive of their ‘European dimension’ as it emerges from quantitative indicators; as a result they rapidly gloss over it as a negligible quantity. Lack of focus and heterogeneity are seen to prevail: All ECOC stated that they had given consideration and significance to the European dimension of their cultural programmes. However, cities interpreted the meaning of these terms in different ways. Some ECOC presented events that focused on the talents of European artists; others embarked on European artistic coproductions and cultural collaborations. Several cities developed European themes and issues in their programmes, or identified and celebrated aspects of European history, identity and heritage. (Palmer/Rae 2004, Vol. 1: 16) This variety of outspoken approaches is not further investigated and even scholarly accounts, whilst never failing to mention it, do not stop to consider it further, even when they come up with a potentially useful intuition regarding what lies beneath them all: Whilst the culture city has been imagined and engineered as a representation of city, region and national identity, sometimes consonant across these levels, sometimes in opposition (i.e. seeking regional or ethnic autonomy and decentralization), the notion of European common cultural heritage has added a supra-national dimension. . . . the promotion of European Cities of Culture and the investment of substantial regional development aid into cultural projects has acted as an effective ‘Trojan horse’ by which structural economic adjustment policies and funding have been diverted into arts-led regeneration and rural development (through crafts, heritage and tourism based projects), generally bypassing national and even city cultural and economic development policy and preferences . . . The use of culture as a conduit for the branding of the ‘European Project’ has added fuel to culture city competition, whilst at the same time celebrating an official version of the European urban renaissance. The brand in this case

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is manifested by the EU logo and packaged as the European culture city-break and contemporary Grand Tour . . . (Evans, 2003: 425–6) Evans’ ‘Trojan horse’ image is very much to the point, however, he fails to develop it and address its role within the furthering of the ‘European project and cultural renaissance’, concentrating instead on the shortcomings of the regeneration strategy. However, the ECOC is a Trojan horse also in the sense that beneath its celebrated heterogeneity, which all analysts accept as a fact, whether to praise or criticize it, there is a consistent, European dimension, which is tactfully kept in the background, and is symbolically even more powerful as it is increasingly taken for granted and naturalized, informing the programme.11 The fact that there is no common agreed content of this European dimension does not equate necessarily to irrelevance or to a ‘lack’, as many diagnose, as it can still provide a common symbology that people can relate to and use to gain legitimization: what we share in symbols is, as we know at least since Durkheim, form rather than content (Kertzer, 1988). The common European dimension should not be conceptualized as totally controlled and imposed from above by the EU, because, as we have seen, the EU has very little control and power to impose the content and, given both the material and cultural conditions in which it operates, there are many ‘narrators’ appropriating the European discourse. Indeed, Evans’ assumption that the European dimension means by necessity the imposition of a ‘common European heritage’ shows how superficially this aspect has been treated in general. Only from such a distant and passing gaze can the ECOC be seen as simply ‘celebrating an official version of European cultural renaissance’: when the ECOC was established, the ‘unity in diversity’ rhetoric was also gaining ground and the EU was certainly not going to repeat the mistakes of its early days by trying to promote a European culture (in the singular), and so opted for the leeway given by the blurred idea of a ‘European cultural space’, embracing diversity and being adaptable in different situations by different actors. There is no simple ‘official version’, and ECOCs have had to contribute to its ongoing creation. This partly emerged from the sequence of cities outlining a cultural map of Europe and the themes they chose, as well as from the few extracts from interviews in section 3.1. Further insights are gained by looking more closely at the ECOCs’ programmes.12 To start from an unusual angle, we can see that in the cultural programmes set-up by the various cities, conferences and debates are a

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characteristic feature from the start, distinguishing the ECOC from mere entertainment programmes. These often have a European focus, either in their theme (e.g. Florence 1986 organized a congress on ‘European cultural policy’ held at the European University Institute) or more often, and increasingly, in being organized as international events attracting European intellectuals, artists and audiences. The ECOC thus also becomes a forum for discussing the nature and reach of cultural policies, as well as of the concept of culture itself. This becomes increasingly apparent in the documents the cities produce, and in particular in their final ‘reports’. These often are glossy, heavily illustrated with photographs volumes: if they can be problematic as instruments of impact evaluation (being both incomplete and possibly unreliable), they are revelatory from the point of view of the narratives that are available, and mobilized as relevant by the cities themselves. For instance, Stockholm 1998 produced an interestingly self-reflective and explicit final report, which is worth considering as an example. Even from a quick look at the document, it is clear that among the many pictures the text is mainly an exercise in legitimization, clearly responding both to internal contrasts and external critiques (one of the sub-headings refers to ‘cultural clashes’). Reporting external critiques offers the ECOCs the opportunity to present their own version: The Cultural Capital project in Stockholm was regarded by many people in the cultural community and by journalists as a political project. People chose not to understand that its structure as a joint stock company actually limited its ability to act politically in terms of program content. Nor did they choose to understand that the European Commission had nothing to do with the shaping of the project, or that the EU’s economic commitment amounted to only a small fraction of the total budget. Even most ‘achievements’ listed at the end of the report are conceptual, ranging from ‘a more impassionate climate for discussion of cultural issues’ to ‘that different forms of artistic expression are increasingly being placed on an equal footing’ (Stockholm ECOC, 1998: 305). As a result of this need for legitimization by its audience, and in the absence of clear guidance from above, Stockholm 1998 has been characterized by a very articulate programme, which is rather self-conscious of the slipperiness of the idea of culture (again, one of the headings of the report is ‘What is culture? A question with many answers’). This was resolved by a broad approach that, together with classics of cultural festivals such

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as theatre, dance, architecture, and so on, had sections on technology, food, children, history (with a focus on local history) and multicultural events. The last two are particularly interesting, not least because they were connected, and for a strategic choice: ‘The Stockholm ’98 history programme was placed in the same organization category as multicultural activities. It was of great importance to show that Stockholm had always been multicultural in some sense, and to avoid any nationalistic overtones’ (ibid.: 289). To stress this, there was no separate part of the programme on something like ethnic art; rather, ‘Stockholm ’98 presented music as music and theatre as theatre’, hosting ‘marginalized cultural expressions on official, legitimate cultural stages’ (ibid.). The inclusion of non-European cultures in the programme, and the attention paid to minorities, immigrants, and so on, is a feature that characterizes many ECOCs, and increasingly so. This can be connected to ECOCs’ progressive focus on less celebratory issues regarding culture, and to conceive ‘difference’ and culture in broader terms. In general, bigger cities staging the ECOC have been, as one would expect, more sensitive to this. Copenhagen 1996 had both a European programme and a worldwide programme, which included the majority of its most ambitious projects (in terms of expenditure, cultural relevance and visitor attendance). The European programme included subsections on European theatre, the new Europe, multicultural theatre festival, festival of European roots, Picasso and the art of Mediterranean, Exploring Europe (student exchanges), and so on. The worldwide programme included a New York Project and a Japan Project, but had a special focus on Africa, staging the Images of the World festival, which concentrated on African culture and was presented as a major festival of African culture with ‘more than 700 performers of all disciplines’. Rotterdam 2001, with its slogan ‘Rotterdam is many cities’, also had a strong focus on multiculturalism, which was presented as a tradition of the city (Hitters, 2000). Even among the first ECOCs, which supposedly focused only on their high cultural heritage, Amsterdam 1987 was the first to use the event to reflect on a number of issues ranging from migration, unemployment, youth cultures and new nationalisms, with European intercultural dialogue as one of its main themes. Looking beneath the surface, that was the approach of Athens 1985 too, which was much more about foreign guests and co-operation than about its ancient heritage, even if the focus was more limited to Western European co-operation. Nevertheless, although the material was potentially there to sustain the rhetoric of a European common cultural heritage, both Athens 1985 and Florence 1986 chose to concentrate

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on the idea of exchange, presenting the event as an unprecedented occasion for doing that, and implying more the willingness to create a common space than the idea that it pre-existed on the basis of the universality of high culture, an argument often attributed to European identity-building initiatives. As they claim and show their factual independence from the EU, ECOCs display and at the same time fill with specific content the European frame in which they are set. Some ECOC’s did rely on conventional narratives that could be seen as more in line with an (assumed) official EU position. For instance, some evoke the familiar concentric circles image that goes from city to nation, to Europe, especially those that are (or once were) also capital cities. Weimar 1999, for instance, in the part of its programme titled ‘Weimar in Europe’ chose to focus on Weimar specificity and on its being at the same time representative of the German spirit. As the website read: Weimar is woven in to European history with hundreds of strands, innumerable intellectual movements and biographies converge here: often enough, even the mention of the name bears a symbolic message . . . The thematic dimension of Weimar in Europe takes into account the numerous expectations borne from the city’s exceptional history . . . On the other hand, Weimar is an ‘example of Germany’. The variety of the intellectual currents associated with it reflect the multifaceted image that Germany has held in the eyes of her neighbours throughout the course of its history – as a nation, a state, and, again, a myth. However, capital cities are a minority in the programme – among one of the few criteria set by the EU from the beginning is that the programme is designed especially for non-capital cities – and that works to stress the link between the local and European, downplaying the national and ultimately disrupting the simple image of several layers of all-encompassing identifications in favour of less holistic and more overlapping forms of belonging. Assuming there is a common, takenfor-granted representation, where Europe is an overarching level in a Russian matryoshka doll-like configuration – local, regional, national, European, global – this is replaced by one where instead the local level relates directly to the European. Multiple nominations in the same year bring this to the fore. Not only in the exceptional case of 2000 (see chapter 4), but also after. Although the collaboration between twinned cities has often been seen as limited, it is interesting to note that grassroots initiatives were often far more

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proactive than central organizations, partly because they could count on the tightly woven fabric of cultural networks that already see themselves as inhabiting a European cultural space. Many ECOCs sharing the title report in their programmes that the central organization received spontaneous proposals of collaborative projects; for instance, in 1999 the secretariat of Bruges 2002 had already received many proposals for events by cultural operators who wanted to work with Salamanca, an ECOC in the same year. This, it was argued, reinforced Bruges’s motto for the ECOC: hospitality. One could read in one of its first published bulletins: When building Europe, the world, the essence remains simple: be open to influences, invite them and create professional instruments for them. Hospitality puts Bruges in a large context of people, with their thoughts and behaviours and with the awareness to express itself as a city in Europe. By defining the European reality in the programme and the quality, it puts itself on the map. Europe is not new, nor just a removed border. It is an open continent . . . This comes just before it reminds us of Flanders’ ‘turbulent history of war and peace’ and, in conclusion, ‘Only an accurate rethinking of history will yield positive results’. The ‘map’ on which the ECOC puts cities is clearly not simply a geographical one, but a map of the new ‘European cultural space’ which various actors are actively shaping. Economic regeneration may be the most direct ambition, and indeed the current fashion for ‘cultural dialogue’ might be no more than empty rhetoric, even Western Europe however, does not lack pressing and recent examples of the all too concrete results of failed dialogue and misuse of ‘culture’. One of the recent twinnings of one Western with a ‘new accession’ country has been used as a platform for rethinking history and cultural stereotypes. Luxembourg and Sibiu in Romania shared the title in 2007. Luxembourg extended the title to its Greater Region, which takes in parts of France, Belgium and Germany, emphasizing transborder co-operation for which Luxembourg is, understandably, well advanced, and including in it its Romanian partner: both cities stress in their programme the importance of sharing the title at a time when Romania was becoming a member state of the EU. Stating that the two cities have had special ties since the twelfth century, co-operation in the programmes is presented with the slogan ‘Sibiu and Luxembourg, two European capitals of culture with common roots – and with a common future in the European fold’: ‘1,400 km separate the two Capitals

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of Culture. But despite this distance, some 30 joint projects in different artistic and cultural fields, as well as an equally remarkable programme of activities for our people, bear impressive witness of these cross-border exchanges’ (Luxembourg ECOC, 2007: 198). A good example of these projects is the exhibition Attention, tsiganes! Histoire d’un malentendu, included in the socio-cultural programme and developed in collaboration by the two organizations and held in Luxembourg. This exhibition follows the everyday life of Roma in Europe, with the aim to dispel mutual stereotypes. This first glance at the programmes is useful to show how hasty is the dismissive conclusion that dominates the accepted wisdom on the ECOCs’ European dimension, however, it may leave an impression of confusion and anecdotal evidence. Once again, though, if one concentrates on the distinction between direct and symbolic dimensions, the confusion gives way to a coherent pattern. No matter how cities push and pull the programme to achieve their own urban policies’ objectives, at the symbolic level it is the European framework that remains dominant. At the same time its empty frame progressively both hardens and adapts to changing contexts and approaches. The consolidated account sees the 1990s, and in particular Glasgow 1990, as representing a revolutionary year with a shift from celebration and strong links with politics to regeneration and a focus on more local issues; even so the European dimension is not part of the dismissed package. The focus on high art fading in favour of more ‘eventful’ programmes, is not matched by a fading in the European focus, nor is the narrative on European identity set aside. However, its rhetoric does change, as now the ECOC is no longer an honorary title finally bestowed on deserving cities, but a transformative process in itself. Identity is even more at stake, because the programme is now connected to a more anthropological notion of culture as a way of life which distinguishes one group from another. The fact that this too is now connected to Europe signals increased confidence in the possibility of defusing the negative connotations of diversity to exalt the positive ones, which were once only recognized in the safer manifestations of high culture (or possibly in the commoditized products of cultural industry). The paradigmatic example of Glasgow 1990 illustrates this well. Even as it was introducing the new regeneration approach, the strategy was still to present Glasgow as a typical European city. Glasgow, being a marginal city both culturally and, one could argue, geopolitically, uses the title not as means of confirmation or celebration, but in order to ascend a sort of internal hierarchy. Glasgow 1990 set for itself a threefold

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objective, producing a high-profile festival, urban regeneration and ‘to meet a “European” remit, furthering the spirit and purpose of the City of Culture idea while proving that Glasgow was a truly European city’ (Gold and Gold, 2005: 227). In a way, the fact that some opposition to the programme coalesced in a group protesting at the lack of consideration and misrepresentation of working-class roots in favour of middle-class tastes, as well as the lack of community involvement (even though Glasgow was one of the first ECOCs to have a community programme, though protesters saw it as just a token) proves that the ECOC has become a stage for debates on cultural issues, and that these debates take place within a European frame (Gold and Gold 2005, 230). Significantly, as we have seen, the Glasgow 1990 presentation booklet declared: ‘Glasgow looks like a European city. And feels like one’ (in Heikkinen 2000: 212). That may seem an obvious and redundant sentence for a slogan – of course, Glasgow is a European city – but it is one that is transformed into a declaration of identity, almost a manifesto, pointing to a quality or a will that goes beyond whatever we assume the established meaning of ‘European’ to be. Once again, it is arguably for its apparent obviousness that it has totally been ignored. The real impact of Glasgow 1990 is still debated, but that debate revolves around whether or not urban regeneration was achieved and whether this was or not to the detriment of artistic achievements. In one of the most recent studies, Beatriz García tried to settle the matter by adopting a long-term approach that focuses on the cultural impact. After interviewing cultural operators and undertaking media analysis she concluded that the image and identity of Glasgow changed for good. Although she focuses mainly on the local dimension, her data are also interesting to the perspective adopted here. Not only does her quantitative media analysis show that the ‘international culture’ dimension of the programme (there is no indication about ‘European culture’ more specifically) was the theme least likely to have received negative coverage in the press, but more importantly in one of her crucial quotes from the interviews, she reports a respondent as saying: ‘The Year of Culture definitely put Glasgow in the map as a European city. [But] maybe you could argue it’s always been a European city, it’s just never been acknowledged’ (quoted in García, 2005: 860). It is a repetition of the official rhetoric almost to the letter, and certainly a statement of identity. The author has not taken up this lead nor directly asked questions of Europe, however this confirms what another observer has remarked, in passing, in a study of Helsinki 2000: ‘there is a certain imaginary, symbolic hierarchy between the locales on Europe. Now the image transformers of the “marginal” or

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“peripheral” cities are trying to present their cities as European cities – whatever the term means – in order to relocate them “higher” in the hierarchy’ (Heikkinen, 2000: 212). To be European means more than being in Europe for these cities, it means becoming European in a more significant, but also less defined sense: a process reminiscent of a ‘becoming what you are’, in which both terms define themselves reciprocally. To be able to see and enhance one’s own Europeanness is a mark of distinction, of a high cultural capital. The valorization of a city’s culture and identity stems from its redefinition as ‘European’. The term now connotes a quality, never explicitly or implicitly defined, through which what is geographically European can be evaluated (Ifversen, 2002). Europe as a contested concept does not derive only from the European institutions, but can be appropriated, as Glasgow shows, or indeed those of ECOCs from ‘third European countries’; it becomes the new enabling and limiting context of cities, as recently advanced at a political level for instance by Le Galés (2002). To conclude, the ECOC does work as suggested at the beginning of this chapter as a means for a reconceptualization of both space and time in European terms. Such a conclusion could in a sense have been intuited in the very formulation of the programme, in particular with regard to the reconceptualization of space. Greek, Italian and French cities are now called European (as once they were nationalized). The present reconceptualization clearly does not have the strength of the national one, which it is not attempting to replace, but is nevertheless very significant – something that is revealed in the fact that the precise title is ‘European city of culture’ and not ‘City of European culture’. The chosen formulation is not, as it might at first seem, just more careful and blurred; on the contrary, it shows that what is at stake is a redefinition of the context of the belonging of cities, and thus of identities, more than an appropriation of cultural contents in European terms. If this is why the European dimension is often deemed irrelevant, it also proves its increasing (and tacit) role as a shared symbol, increasingly available for becoming Europeans. What we can see through the implementation of the ECOC programme is not only a map of the European cultural space taking shape, but also how that implies a reconceptualization of the cities involved as European. However, also thanks to minimal regulation (and minimal EU financing), the programme makes space for an array of different approaches and contents: it then becomes a representation of how the European cultural space is held together by this diversity. Therefore, it also hints at the difference between European and the national cultural

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spaces, between Europeanization and nationalization. In the European cultural space, it is the attitude to diversity that makes it European, not the finding of a common cultural content. In a way, this is intrinsic in the very name of the programme, and in particular in the position of the adjective ‘European’, which qualifies ‘city’ and not ‘culture’. ‘City of European culture’ would also have been much more essentialist, in line with the nationalization process, with which the reconceptualization of space in European terms does not compete. What the chosen formula of ‘European city of culture’ does is to relocate the agency, rather than to appropriate the object (a cultural content). It is thus to the actors directly involved that we should turn, to see how this informs their everyday cultural practice.

4 A ‘Wealth of Urban Cultures’: the European Cities of Culture in 2000

The most unexplored dimension of the ECOC is the one that most clearly distinguishes it from other cultural festivals – that is, its being one of the so-called ‘emblematic actions’ of the EU, a dimension that is both ill-defined and one of the major selection criteria: the ‘European dimension’. In order to analytically grasp this symbolic dimension of the ECOC – its being (or not) both a catalyst and an expression of identities reframed in European terms, and what that means – we need a close-up approach, one that can appreciate the ECOCs’ formal and informal narratives as well as its practices, the plurality of actors actively involved in their shaping as they are embodied in official programmes, in everyday discourse and in the actual set of events and initiatives that substantiate an ECOC. To this end a qualitative, ethnographic research strategy seemed the most suitable. The peculiarities of the programme provided a particularly good case study: as we have seen in passing, in the year 2000 nine cities shared the title and were explicitly called on to co-operate in order to create the ‘European cultural space in the year 2000’. As a result, the European dimension is brought forward both in the reality and in the representation of the ECOCs’ 2000 events, so that the year 2000 can be seen as a concentrated, synchronic representation of what the diachronic passing of the title from one city and country to the next achieved over the years in terms of outlining a ‘cultural map of Europe’. As has been noted, the exceptional multiple nomination, and in particular the fact that it included both East European countries (at the time candidates for accession) and non-EU countries ‘signalled not only the extension of the European project east and north, but the aspiration of former Soviet Bloc countries to participate in the network of culture cities and, by definition, regain their place in the European Renaissance’ (Evans 109

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2003: 426). This is hardly a conclusion, but rather can serve as a starting point. From my point of view this was an obvious consideration, as I came to the ECOC looking for a context in which to study narratives of European identity away from the Euro-elites producing them (or at least being constantly exposed to them and espousing them as part of their corporate identity; Shore 2000), but within the local (for want of a better word) contexts where they actually become part of the reality of European people. Indeed, the ECOC is one of the few contexts where a diffuse but direct contact with European identity-building narratives and policies can be singled out and thematized. I shall focus here on the activities the nine cities shared as ECOCs, in order to understand which image of Europe emerged when Europe was in focus, what is part of it and what is not, whose Europe it is. This is based on a qualitative, ethnographic research strategy. Participant observation was pivotal in accessing other sources of data too, such as documents and interviews from all nine ECOCs 2000, tapping into both the level of the ECOCs’ organizers and that of artistic directors of single events, as well as the public debate that surrounded the events, as reflected in the media and with the further insights given by participant observation itself.1 I conducted 27 formal interviews with key informants – programme directors, project managers (especially of ‘European projects’), artists and curators, local stakeholders as well as an EU DG Culture official and the secretary of the association created by the nine ECOCs 2000. Interviews were recorded and subsequently fully transcribed and analysed; however, these also merge with countless informal conversations at meetings, press conferences, project launches, exhibition openings and other events (for more detail on methodology, see Introduction). Not surprisingly, sitting in at meetings, and in particular at the joint meetings of the nine cities, was particularly useful, but also more banal moments from the everyday organization of major cultural events were relevant, especially when problems cropped up and interrupted takenfor-granted assumptions, forcing a return to the source of legitimization, an important part of which was obviously the European investiture of a title cities felt they had to live up to.

4.1 Building the European cultural space of 2000 If a ritualized presentation of the ECOC initiative, by media and organizers alike, is one of its characteristic features – repeating Mercouri’s enlightened ‘vision’, the symbolic unfolding of Europe through the

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sequence of nominated cities year after year, the difference of the programmes and the minimal intervention of the EU – this is particularly true of the year 2000. For the turn of the millennium the EU decided, so the official story goes, to celebrate the special significance of the year by conferring the title on nine cities, ‘three from the South (Avignon, Bologna, Santiago de Compostela), three from the Centre (Brussels, Prague, Cracow), three from the North (Bergen, Helsinki, Reykjavik)’, officially calling on them to associate under a common theme and to collaborate so as to ‘organize a European cultural space for the year 2000’. Critically, one could point out that this was a classic case of European compromise, as in fact all the cities that ran for the title got it following failure to agree on one, as some countries threatened to use their veto if their candidate city was not chosen. It is also easy to see how the three groups are quite arbitrary, reflecting their contingent nature rather than special cultural links, with the partial exception of the three cities of the North which did indeed have special cultural ties, which were further developed thanks to the shared title. The decision was in fact not a positive surprise for the cities themselves, some of which even thought about pulling out and trying again later, as Helsinki admitted in its final report. However, if many have seen a loss of focus due to the multiple nominations – and former ECOCs were also particularly critical – the European dimension has been brought to the fore. Whilst the multiple nominations might have appeared as yet another example of the EU being hijacked by national interests, in the end it allowed the EU to gain a symbolic advantage. In fact, it is clear that what these cities share and what gave meaning to the novel initiative rested entirely in belonging to Europe, and this being represented as inclusive and open to diversity: a difficult offer for cities to refuse, and one more blow to exclusive (that is, national) aspirations. As we have noted for the programme in general, no matter how much the nations interfere, the programme’s symbolic dimension remains solidly European. This makes the ECOCs 2000 a special case for our perspective, providing good material to see the European narrative at work, not only at EU headquarters, but around Europe. Shortly after the nomination, much attention on the part of the nine organizing committees was given to the European dimension of the event. In the conference presenting Bologna 2000 to the town in 1997, the then city councillor in charge of cultural policy, Roberto Grandi, stressed this aspect, inviting everybody to collaborate in the important task of ‘representing Italy in Europe, and Europe in Italy’. Europe, he continued, is at risk of being reduced to an economic entity, thus the

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official mission of creating ‘a European cultural space’ is particularly relevant: the nine cities should above all use this occasion to reflect on the role of culture in shaping the identity of Europe, of its richness born out of diversity. The use of the rhetoric of unity in diversity is particularly clear in the account from Prague 2000. In the words of its website: Due to the uniqueness of the turn of the century and millennium and due to the extraordinary interest of European cities, the Council of Ministers of Culture of the European Union . . . awarded the title to a total of nine European cities. The vision of a future unified European continent, consisting of diverse regions, nations and cultures yet comprising a cohesive and communicating whole. As well as this standard narrative, a common visual representation was shared by the nine cities (see Figure 4.1). Interestingly, one may miss this at the beginning, but this ‘map’ of Europe lacks something

Figure 4.1 The official visual representation of the ECOCs 2000 Source: Cogliandro (2001).


that is otherwise always present, and whose lack does indeed serve here to bring the cities closer. That missing element is of course the national boundaries: here we see only Europe and cities. To substantiate the ‘European cultural space for the year 2000’, the EU explicitly invited the ECOCs 2000 to co-ordinate their programmes, form an association and select a joint theme for the events. The Association of European Cities of Culture in the year 2000 (AECC) was established in 1996 and was based in Brussels. According to its statute, the nine cities should ‘act together in order to organise a cultural space for the year 2000’ and ‘[t]he activity of the Cultural Capitals is aimed at drawing closer the peoples of Europe through culture’. Apart from its lobbying tasks in the EU, the AECC facilitated international meetings, the definition of specific themes for each city, the choice of a common logo and the organization of common projects. Having read the minutes of all meetings of the ECOCs 2000, from 1996 (when they started) to 2001 (when they ended their collaboration), and having attended a few of the key meetings in 2000, it is clear how initial ambitions and enthusiasm faded away. This was partly due to having to face the still limited EU funding (which the nine ECOCs had hoped would be significantly increased) and other constraints (insufficient time, lack of joint sponsors, and so on), but also partly because, as some people pointed out, the cities had had to come to terms with an ‘arranged marriage’, which had been organized more for political than for cultural reasons, and this for some cast a shadow across the events. Interestingly, as we shall see (section 4.2), this was more the case for the official organizations in the nine cities than for the cultural sectors themselves, as shown by the fact that many artists, cultural associations and the like came up with ad hoc proposals of collaboration among some or all of the nine ECOCs. Taking a closer look, one can see that as well as a quantitative decrease in the ‘European’ focus during the preparatory years, there is a qualitative shift, which does not necessarily amount to a simple loss. In 1996 meetings were held first in Cracow, then Santiago, Avignon and Helsinki, where a first partnership agreement was signed. By this point, many things had changed: in Cracow the discussion was very much focused on finding the common theme that the EU had asked them to select for their programmes, as well as more practical issues of common communication and sponsorships, and the overall budget to allocate for co-operation. By the second meeting in Santiago the cities’ representatives had decided that each would have their own theme, and indeed nine themes were put forward, although they were not yet associated with cities. However, even as the EU’s preference was being de facto

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ignored, the cities maintained it as a rationale for their choices, with the idea that each city would lead within their own theme projects which would be developed in collaboration with all – or at least some – of the other eight. The agreement of Helsinki finally assigned themes to cities, and its way of presenting the choice is worth quoting at length: According to the original concept of the Cultural City tradition, the cities will work to make the culture of every city and country known to each other and to all other peoples of Europe and the whole world. Thus the goals in the decision of the EU Council of Cultural Ministers will be achieved and the particular symbolic significance of the year 2000 as the opening of a new millennium taken into account. The Council of Cultural Ministers invited the cities to co-ordinate their programmes and to work out a common theme for the events. They will thus be able to act together in the organisation of a European cultural space for the year 2000. (emphasis added) The same document goes on to say that ‘the Cities have agreed to perform within the themes’ (emphasis added to underline the sleight of hand of ‘casually’ switching to the plural), ‘which are designed to carry a joint message of the European civilisation into the third millennium’. So, interestingly, even if the themes were chosen by the cities involved and bypassing the initial EU request of a single common theme, the symbolism of the common theme is maintained as well as the patronage of the EU. In a letter dated May 1996 (attached to the minutes of the Avignon meeting of July 1996), Marcelino Oreja, then European Commissioner for Culture, had written to the nine ECOCs 2000 urging them to focus on Europe: many of our States will carry out ambitious national projects that will exalt their roots and envision the ways of their future. However, I feel that it is necessary for Europe as such, as a united body, to speak about itself, in addition to and on a par with the member nations. It is up to you, the European Cities of Culture for the year 2000, to get this message across. It has to be wide-ranging and ambitious, and it has to express, before the rest of the world, our diversities and also our hope, our common values and the civilization project of which we are bearers. It is a message from Europe to the world – that is what we have to construct and proclaim. It is clear that no single city is capable of doing it all alone. It is therefore necessary to work


as a team, and may the juxtaposition of the nine projects form the overall image, in synthesis, that Europe wishes to project of itself to our fellow citizens and those beyond our borders. The cities responded a few months later, sending a dossier with the Helsinki agreement to the Commission. In the letter accompanying it, they describe it as a first step towards the fulfilment of the EU’s desire for them to co-ordinate programmes and pursue common themes – once again using the plural as if nothing had happened – and stating once again, quite mysteriously, that the nine chosen themes are created as ‘a joint message of European civilisation’. The common theme has been transformed in the synthetic result, not made explicit, of different themes, a result that we then assume to be that image of European culture that the ECOC have been called to illustrate, as the official rhetoric keeps repeating, highlighting at the same time diversity and common elements. The EU did not seem to mind however, and from that moment on in their publications all nine ECOCs 2000 make a point of saying that they received their theme from the EU, in recognition of outstanding achievement in a certain field, realized by their leading special, ‘joint’ projects within that theme and with the co-operation of all cities (see Table 4.1 for the themes and main joint projects realized within them). Even direct questions to programme directors during interviews Table 4.1 ECOCs 2000: Cities, themes and ‘joint projects’ City

ECOC Theme

‘Joint Project’ leadership (or co-leadership)

Avignon Bergen Bologna

Art and Creativity Art, Work and Leisure Information and Communication The City

Technomade Coasts and Waterways Café9.net; Bologna Gala Dinner Walk about/Stalk; The House of the 9 Cities Codex Calixtinus

Brussels Cracow Helsinki

Prague Reykjavik Santiago de Compostela

Thought, Spirituality and Creativity Knowledge, Technology and the Future Cultural heritage Nature and Culture Europe and the World

Communication; Voices of Europe; Café9.net; Kide Citylink Voices of Europe Faces of the Earth

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were answered with the same explanation (that the theme had been assigned directly by the EU was even less questioned by lower ranks in the organizations, or by artists), most of them apparently having forgotten that the initial target was a common theme, a further example of how collective memory is as much about forgetting as it is about remembering. Thus this situation cannot be described as a simple loss of European focus or interest, but as an ongoing, interactive production of what that means. Circumvented in practice – it is not clear how consciously – the European rhetoric is maintained, with the occasional plural form substituting for the singular in the right place, as the EU itself has progressively learned to do, revealing how bidirectional the interpretive work is and how a legitimizing frame is being established in a contested field. Even so, these themes are very general – judged too general and not really of any guidance even by some of the organizers – and certainly not particularly ‘European’. They confirm something we already know: Europe is found more in the collaboration and exchange itself than in the themes. The emphasis on creating a ‘European cultural space’ through international collaborations, in line with European cultural policies more generally, meant that there was no need for a specific European ‘theme’ or category.2 This leaves it up to the cities themselves to interpret what content to give to the ‘European dimension’. At the outset, the ECOCs 2000 started with lofty aspirations. In the Helsinki agreement among the ECOCs 2000 we also read that they ‘are fully aware that the creation of a European cultural identity means, above all, knowing and promoting the different national, regional and city cultures, so that their citizens truly become builders of the common home of Europe’. Such phrasing seems to emanate directly from the EU and is not isolated: especially in the early meetings (which, incidentally, a representative of the European Commission would attend until at least 1997), such grandiloquent narratives were common. What became of them in the face of putting programmes together is thus interesting. Not surprisingly, reality was less rosy and, as in the case of the common theme, less straightforward. Robert Palmer, interviewed as director of Brussels 2000 (but also a former director of Glasgow 1990 and adviser of many others) sharply sums this up in his evaluation of the multiple nominations as a whole: My view is that it was an interesting experiment, but it did not really work, except on an entirely symbolic level. It’s very nice I suppose to look at the map of Europe with nine dots, you know, all connected:


three in the North, three in the Centre, three in the South, some former Eastern European cities, some not, some big, some small, and then you can create some kind of symbolism about European diversity. But on a practical level I think the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. I think it means less of a focus for a city, it means enormous difficulties in trying to generate co-operation or collaboration between these nine cities which have not come together for cultural reasons, they have come together because they were designated by politicians . . . However, I think it was a useful experiment, there were some interesting bilateral projects . . . I wouldn’t say it was a total failure, but I think those projects were probably minor in relation to the entire programme of most of the cities. Indeed, if we turn to the programmes of the ECOC 2000 as a whole, we can see that from the early centrality of the preliminary phase (1996–8) to actual programming (1999–2000) this opinion seems to find confirmation: ‘European projects’ resulted as a minor part of each city’s events. Looking at the actual programmes the nine cities put up it seems that Europe is not so much an issue; the real focus of attention is on the specificity of the city itself (only capital cities occasionally extending this to national specificity) and on major, spectacular events and regeneration projects, regardless of their having a European dimension or not. Preliminary programmes,3 generally published in 1999 or earlier and aiming at introducing the public to the whole initiative, all contained sections on the history of the ECOC, the specificity of the year 2000 and in particular on the European ‘vocation’ of their town. Santiago de Compostela’s brochure, for instance, rhetorically asks (and answers): ‘Why Santiago de Compostela? Because of its historical meaning and its universal character: Goethe said that the idea of Europe was born from pilgrimages to Compostela.’4 Similarly, candidature letters and accompanying dossiers all point to demonstrating the Europeanness of a certain city as well as its specificity, or better, its specific incarnation of Europeanness. Not surprisingly Brussels, for instance, geared its candidature to being the heart of the EU, but also as being a meeting point of different cultures, and hence a truly multicultural city. Cities from countries then aspiring to EU membership were especially vocal in pointing to the political significance. In his letter to the Commission, the Czech Minister of Culture wrote: The title of European City of Culture, be it awarded to Prague due to its unique geographic location in the centre of Europe, its stirring

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history, unique architecture, wealth of cultural heritage or enormous creative potential would testify to the fact that Prague had always been and continues to be an inseparable crossroads of European culture. Now, all these aspects are, almost with equal consistency, absent from final cultural programmes. Material published from late 1999, either on paper or online, contains little in the way of introductory remarks and is almost always presented according to the standard categories of cultural festivals (theatre, music, art, and so on). Sometimes more thematic approaches were chosen, either exclusively or in parallel; however, Europe is still notable by its absence. As organization proceeded, the early enthusiasm seems to have faded. The first meetings imagined common communication strategies, joint programmes covering substantial parts of the overall manifestation and promoted together in periodic joint publications. Little of all this was actually realized in these ambitious terms, and ECOCs 2000 seemed to struggle even to have at least one project per city developed in collaboration with all the others (see section 4.2). However, once again, this is not an exhaustive picture, and, to revisit a common saying, one may have to look beyond the substance to see the form. Europe was still there in the events, even if more as a ‘background’ spread across the programme, rather than as flagship marker attracting attention. For instance, the standardized history of the ECOC and of the year 2000 was never omitted, even when preliminary information was pared to the bone. Moreover, searching each city’s website (they all had search engines to help people find events they were interested in) one could see that the word ‘Europe’ was repeated almost as often as words such as ‘music’ or ‘theatre’, it was more popular than a more specific category such as ‘architecture’, and not much less popular than the word ‘culture’ itself. This was a constant among the nine cities, and a closer look at the results shows that indeed ‘Europe’ and ‘European’ were among the most common keywords of single initiatives, with many events having ‘Europe’ in their title or descriptions. ‘Europe’ and ‘European’ are used as often as possible, often in place of terms such as international that would do just as well and would probably have been used were the events not included in the ECOC. Projects that address Europe in their themes are very few, but there is a wealth of ‘European congresses’ on the most diverse subjects, along with ‘European prizes’, ‘European day’, and so on. This was not linked to the EU funds, as these are, as we have seen, minimal, but rather


to a legitimization that evidently is supposed to derive from qualifying as ‘European’. Again, this is not necessarily in strict relation to the EU, which has little direct influence on the programme and on single projects in particular, most of which were selected by the ECOC among proposals from independent cultural operators, either spontaneous, or called for. These are, rather, signs of a pre-existing, available context that can be recalled when needed and thereby repeated and reinforced. This European context remains mostly implicit – no one feels the need to define or justify it: we are within the European City of Culture after all – and, therefore, accepted and objectified. This context cannot be explained solely on the grounds of formal, instrumental obligations towards the EU, especially given its markedly limited control over the programme. Still, a mere quantitative indicator such as a website search can only point to an interesting pattern, stimulating further exploration of the evolution of programmes and single projects, as well as of how the people involved understood their European co-operation. The interpretation of this apparently contradictory picture proceeds from considering that the point here is not to establish who or what is more truthful and far-sighted among those people, documents and indices that claim that there has been close co-operation, successful projects and the creation of ‘a European cultural space’, and those who claim the opposite and see the joint ECOC as a failure because it meant the dilution of focus (and funds). That question remains open, just as different opinions will resist resolution (as we shall see in the next section). However, interesting insights can be gained by looking at what these opposing positions share. There are in fact aspects that are not questioned by disagreement on the most obvious ones. This becomes clear in two comments. The first is that official discourse is always reported literally – ritually I would say – as a legitimizing frame, whether it is believed to have been realized in practice or not. This is certainly linked to the ambiguity of EU discourse in cultural matters, made more of formulae providing discursive solutions for otherwise contradictory situations (such as the combination of unity and diversity) than clear indications. Some of the ECOC 2000 organizers did regret the lack of a clear strategy (when self-evaluating the event, in Palmer/Rae 2004, vol. 2, 97–247), but most seemed capable of seizing that as an opportunity to present whatever they had on their programmes as having the required a ‘European dimension’. This takes us to the second consideration, translating the first one on a practical level. By ‘European dimension’ what the ECOCs 2000 consistently understood is, not

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surprisingly, European collaboration, the working together of various European subjects on common cultural projects, more than the realization of projects having a European ‘theme’. This may be explained, once again, as an instrumental way of complying with the European policy style (see chapter 2): in so doing, cities obtain what they want as they can bend the programme to fit their own agendas and strategies, as most observers point out. However, as is less often pointed out, in so doing cities also contribute to the furthering of a new frame of reference. The combined effect of these two aspects is in fact that ‘Europe’ emerges as a value, attached to everything valuable or in need of valorization, a shared symbol, whatever its contested contents. The phrase ‘a European cultural space’ may be quite abstract, but it shows how Europe maintains a positive connotation, a quality, lending a positive tone per se to what can be put next to it. The ambiguity of Europe and its corollaries both implies that the debate is open about specific meanings and sustains an unchallenged assumption that they are good. The very name of Europe becomes a legitimizing tool: it may not provide much in the way of content, but lurks in the background, emerging at critical or strategic moments, subtly, but definitely. This changes the frames of reference of the actors involved and the positions of these cities in a new cultural map of Europe, which is of course also a new mental map displacing old boundaries and possibly pointing to new ones (Lamont and Thevenot, 2000).

4.2 Unity and diversity in practice: the European dimension of ECOCs 2000 The realization of common projects has been the main form of co-operation among the nine ECOCs and their answer to what it meant to contribute to the ‘European cultural space’. Co-operation projects have been both those formally supported by the nine cities’ association, the AECC, and those emerging more spontaneously from cultural operators in two or more of the cities involved. Within the AECC, initial proposals were quite ambitious, but were progressively adjusted under increasing pressures, as each city had to focus on getting the programme going and raising enough money, especially given the scant contribution from the EU. In short, within the AECC it was agreed that every city would propose a project under their given thematic priority (see Table 4.1), of which it would be the leader, ideally attracting all other eight cities as partners. These ‘joint projects’ were all quite ambitious and, as priority, projects emanating from the central organizations,


were normally given a separate status in the programmes. However, their actual import to the programme is a debated issue. Of the twelve projects realized, very few were shared by all nine cities, and only some of them featured among the flagship events of any one ECOC. At the last AECC meeting of 2000, held in Bologna, many of the directors of the nine cities pointed out that the few joint projects were in fact those that travelled from one city to another, whilst the original aim was to give shape to common ideas. As the secretary of the association was then pushing forward the idea of continuing collaboration within the formal association beyond 2000, given the good results that were, she reported, very much appreciated by the EU, the director of Helsinki 2000, Georg Dolivo, openly voiced his disagreement: ‘In the EU they have a romantic idea of what we have done. We should have done joint projects, instead they were just projects passed onto others cities’, which meant betraying the initial idea of working together rather than simply circulating pre-packaged events. Even though some cities were in favour of making the AECC permanent, or at least were open to considering it, it was the majority’s decision not to continue its activity, as on the whole it was not felt to have been a success. When self-evaluating the events for the official, EU-commissioned report (Palmer/Rae 2004, vol. 2), most ECOCs 2000 declared that co-operation had been of ‘minor extent’, with the notable and consistent exception of the three Nordic cities (Bergen, Helsinki, Reykjavik) which all said collaboration was of ‘major extent’ as they were able to develop closer collaboration based on previous affinities and links. At the same time, however, all ECOCs 2000 declared that the projects realized together did ‘reflect’ a European dimension and that that was considered a programme priority. Although maybe partly or even totally disappointed by the actual results, they nevertheless endorsed the objective and have devoted time and attention to work out for themselves what the vague idea of a ‘European dimension’ may mean. Both the heterogeneity and the less frequently recognized underlying consistency and isomorphism of what they came up with, in terms of actual projects but also of aspirations and interpretations, are fundamental. A closer look at both – the actual cultural contents and their format, and their interpretations by the people involved – is necessary if we are to go beyond a superficial analysis. To start, we can take up the lead of the previous interview extract by the director of Brussels 2000 (quoted in section 4.1). The common view, that this privileged observer well epitomizes, is that of heterogeneity alone, so that, when asked about the relevance of the ‘European’

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qualification of the programme, the answer is rather tentative and dismissive: [S]ome cities now are finding it difficult to define the Europe of the 21st century, because the European dimension of course has to reflect in cultural terms more than just the member states of the EU, the idea of Europe is much, much wider, and as one can see by the number of countries that want to gain entry to the EU, and therefore that becomes an additional challenge, of not simply to deal with 12 or 16 countries but how to deal with probably a more theoretical cultural issue, of how to represent Europe. And that has been compounded in some cities by not really focusing only on a European dimension, but on an international dimension, so there is also the relationship between Europe and the rest of the world. So I find that each city has tried to define it or redefine this European issue in a different way and almost every city has come up with a different answer to it. If this dismissive view of the European dimension is on the whole shared by many of the people I interviewed – even if some were much more positive – the reasons given for this situation and its interpretation cast a different light from one showing a mere lack of relevance. The European dimension was limited, according to the ECOCs 2000 organizers, as both the report and data from my interviews confirm, mainly for practical or structural reasons (such as the different size and type of cities and related different budgets, and lack of sufficient time), rather than ‘cultural’ ones, which were never considered as such as an impediment (some ‘subjective’ ones were mentioned, such as contrasting personalities and lack of interest in some occasions). Just as we have seen for the overall programmes, the so-called European projects were so named not because of specific themes represented as ‘European’ in themselves or keyed in European terms, but because they developed out of the collaboration of subjects from more than one country. This not only follows what for EU funds is a consolidated practice, but more importantly shows how the difficulties and strengths of collaboration are presented, as well as the role of ‘cultural difference’ within it. The ECOCs 2000 have progressively learnt this strategy of focusing on collaboration as an effective way of overcoming cultural differences, or better, to make a resource of them rather than a liability. It is interesting to see how that adaptation process took place. Discussing the relationship of the nine cities, the manager of ‘European projects’ in the preparatory phase of Bologna ECOC 2000


reported that even if efforts had been made to collaborate in the creation of the projects, shared projects were difficult ‘because of cultural differences, a project that may be very interesting for a city, may be totally uninteresting for another’. Successful projects, he continued, were those with an ‘international key’, explaining that by this he meant that they should involve international active participation rather than having a European, or international, theme. As an example he mentioned Voices of Europe, a choir of young people from the nine cities, designed and organized jointly. Trying to understand the rationale guiding his distinctions, I asked if in this case cultural diversity did not affect the result. The answer was revealing: ‘On the contrary. In this case cultural difference is used as a value’, and when this happens, ‘working with people from Reykjavik, Praga, Santiago is easy after all. And you realize that, in fact, there is a common identity. Twenty, fifteen years ago this was unthinkable.’ The connotation of cultural diversity shifts in line with which concept of culture it implies. Diversity is an obstacle when connected, even if implicitly, to a static way of life or worldview, making only certain themes or contents interesting. Diversity becomes positive when it means different voices and collaboration, when it is about cultural products that originate from diversity and imply a process of diversification (the process that makes it possible, in the words of my interviewee, to work with diversity and that frames identity in terms of this capacity to learn how to work with others). The interesting point is that we also see here – in someone who considered himself a Eurosceptic – the same move we saw at the level of EU rhetoric. Diversity is first neutralized, because it is phrased in terms of cultural goods and of co-operation in the production of those goods; however, also thanks to this ability to co-operate, diversity is re-grafted onto identity: in the words of my interviewee, living and working together is possible, and that has to do, indeed, with a common identity as a way of life. Many other interviewees in the ECOC 2000 display similar attitudes, always focusing on collaboration, whether seen as successful or unsuccessful in particular cases. Indeed, Voices of Europe (which some staff had more or less affectionately renamed Vices of Europe, given the complexities and challenges of going on tour around Europe with 100 mostly teenagers) was the project most often cited as an example. Even one of the directors of the choir, the one appointed by Bologna, said that the project worked, even if the culture of choirs is more developed in some of the participating countries than others, because commonality was achieved through collaboration and not through trying and making the thematic

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aspects homogeneous, as even the musical programme of the choir demonstrated: One of the difficulties was precisely the formation of the programme. I believe it is right not to seek a monothematic programme, unitarian, also because it was right that every nation should come up with an idea or two, and in fact it seems to me that there was no lack of interest. Perhaps it would have been easier to simply say ‘the Renaissance in Europe’, but instead in this way the different personalities of the directors were able to emerge. This is why Voices of Europe is, as its brochure states, the symbol of Europe. As another director, this one from Brussels, explained to me, unravelling the symbolism of the choir, this is because, contrary to what one is led to think, in a choir the individual voices are not lost, they do not fuse or become subsumed in a single one, everyone retains their individuality, though there is in fact collaboration. As a practical result, it is not a European theme that makes the success of a European project – and my interviewees had no difficulties in listing examples of failed projects of that kind – but this does not mean an absence of Europe, as a comparison with the type of appropriation of cultural contents in the name of the nation may lead us to think. Europe remains as an underlying, diffuse dimension of active participation and collaboration: beneath the heterogeneity of hundreds of projects on all sorts of themes, this was a quite constant frame across the ECOCs in 2000 (and not only them). This view from a specific example is also confirmed by a consideration of the overall programmes. Comparing early draft programmes with the ones actually implemented, this impression proved accurate: initially, the cities thought of (and sometimes thought they had to think of) projects thematizing Europe, going as far as imagining a ‘European Charter for Culture’ (a draft of which circulated at some point in 1998 among the ECOCs 2000 but was soon forgotten) or debates on ‘The EU and cultural policy in the new millennium’, both to remain just another annex to one of the many meetings’ proceedings. Early draft projects were not only more ambitious (and expensive) than those realized, they were also qualitatively different. In the field of dance an early proposal by Bologna was to organize a festival to be called The Myth of Europa, a project for European dance. The draft project details a major initiative that would commission original works from ‘the best European choreographers’, articulating the myth of Europe around key literary figures, such as Ulysses and Don Quixote, and including ballet,


concerts, urban events as well as involving children’s theatre schools by commissioning them to write ‘European fairytales’. Ultimately, the project failed to attract the collaboration of other ECOCs 2000 and remained with the proposing city, Bologna, being less grandiosely called Dance 2000: no trace of the European theme remained, though the participation of ‘European dancers and choreographers’ was underlined. The projects that made it into the programme were generally those that made no claim to be European in a substantial way, but that drew their Europeanness from having being developed in the active collaboration of more than one of the cities sharing the title. It is also interesting to note that, looking at the ‘joint projects’ (see Table 4.1), the trend towards a wide ‘anthropological’ notion of culture found in the ECOC programme as a whole is confirmed, with the majority of the initiatives not focusing on the major arts, or if so, trying to introduce innovation through the use of technologies, interdisciplinarity or by emphasizing active collaboration. So the main shared projects have not been major art exhibitions or classical music concerts, but projects such as Technomade, proposed by Avignon, on the relationship between culture, disability and technologies, or Coasts and Waterways, an initiative from Bergen, where rivers and coastlines became an excuse to reflect on travel, cultural difference and encounters. As well as the already described Voices of Europe – a classic high art repertoire made ‘innovative’ by its collaborative format – musical events included Codex Calixtinus (Cracow), which reconstructed the liturgy of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela on the basis of the music contained in the so-called Codex Calixtinus, connected with the cult of St Jacob, which was also developed by the collaboration of musicians and singers from several countries. A few projects concentrated on technologies, in particular on communication technologies, for instance Communication, Citylink and, with a more pronounced ‘European’ rhetoric Café nine, jointly proposed by Bologna and Helsinki, as a virtual meeting place emanating from ‘the social and intellectual European tradition of the café culture’ (see Box. 4.1). Probably the most symbolically ambitious was Kide, proposed by Helsinki, which did travel to all nine cities. The Kide were nine sound and light glass installations, one for each ECOC 2000, which looked like giant ice cubes animated by slightly different light and sound (‘from cool Nordic blues to radiating Southern reds’). They also changed with touch and were connected in real time to each other by a screen, so that you could see what was happening around them in the other eight cities; for New Year’s Eve 2000 they were brought together in Helsinki to form a single piece. As we read in its brochure: ‘Kide symbolises the diversity

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of Europe, with very different and even conflicting elements coming together to form a European voice and unity . . . . Kide will accentuate the underlying idea of the Cultural Capital institution: dialogue between individuals and cultures.’ Indeed, more than one of my interviewees cited it as a good exemplification of ‘unity in diversity’. These joint flagship projects set up by the central organization for the ECOCs 2000 were not the only ones; in fact, it is worth noting that if joint projects numbered barely a dozen, over 60 other initiatives of spontaneous collaboration between cultural operators in some or all ECOCs 2000 also took place. The very emergence of this more pronounced spontaneous desire to collaborate is significant, and is probably linked to the fact that cultural operators could draw on the already quite well-developed web of grassroots networks and active collaborations that has had much impact in the last decades, especially once the EU started to support them (see chapter 2, section 2.3). This made independent cultural operators quicker to respond to this call as an opportunity, whilst it was felt to be more of a burden by the central ECOCs’ 2000 organizations. Once again, these initiatives displayed a wide notion of culture and an emphasis on co-productions, existing and new networks, and so on. (For a short description of some of them, see Cogliandro, 2001.) This is probably nowhere as clear as in one of them, Europe in the Box, a travelling contemporary art exhibition that was made of boxes of fixed dimensions, inside and around which individually commissioned artists from previous ECOCs represented what their stay in another city that had previously been an ECOC had inspired. One of the German curators explained the project and its ‘European dimension’ to me thus: We wanted to live Europe, not to proclaim Europe, if you know what I mean. We didn’t ask the artists to think of Europe, we asked them to think of a different town. Only the boxes taken as a whole, altogether, make the project European . . . . I think Europe is only the frame: it means the frontiers, the flags, the languages, the rules. But the contents are the European countries with their diversity, their different histories and traditions . . . . I don’t think that Europe can be both, frame and content. Europe is only the frame, it is a general aim of all the European countries, but its content is diversity. This is exactly the same with Europe in the Box. The frame is the idea, the concept – the contents are the different boxes. The frame is determined by the definition of Europe. Each artist comes from a European country, but the content is not their European background. It is their description of a single town, of former Cultural Capitals of Europe.


One could almost say that rather than being in the box, in this case Europe is the box, the common frame that gives meaning to what otherwise would remain unrelated pieces of contemporary art. Europe is a ‘general aim’, but contents do not descend directly from it; at the same time, this being a polyvalent container is the specificity of Europe, so that it participates in the specificity of each of these boxes, whilst preventing any claims to primacy that any single content might want to advance. However, the emphasis on collaboration rather than theme is more than a question of form (or frame) over content; it is also, in a sense, about agency over structure, or culture in action over objectified culture. Indeed, whether praising or dismissing the situation, people seemed to agree that Europe was there more as something to discover for yourself than something that could be simply displayed to people, from the top down. And even if we dig a bit deeper still, inside what each city presented as European we find a common pattern. This was particularly clear in the projects that Bologna 2000 grouped under the heading ‘Cultures/Europe’ (in itself an interesting typology, which, running alongside more traditional ones such as ‘Theatre’ or even ‘Food Culture’, shows with that indecisive forward slash a certain self-conscious anxiety in relation to its object), and which, interestingly, were often presented in publications together with those on extra-European cultures. If we try to grasp the meaning emerging from the initiatives grouped under this odd heading, we see how their stated objectives cover a range that can be spread across a continuum: compare differences, connect European cities and nations, favour integration, find commonalities between all or some European countries, retrace the birth of Europe (through historical figures, and the like), map European culture (for instance, through languages), participate in the active definition of Europeanization. However, in this continuum towards a stronger emphasis on what is in common, it is noteworthy that what is different is simply there to be compared, and typically finds expression in events that show several readings of a specific theme, at the European level. On the contrary, commonalities are to be ‘found’ or even ‘built’, they are not there yet, not yet evident, and it is this process of active construction that is highlighted. Whilst in the first case ‘European’ is no more than a collective name given to the sum of its more meaningful parts, when it becomes a subject on its own, emerging out of the mere sum of the parts, it is based on active participation. What emerges from my fieldwork as a European dimension is really what sociologists, as well as some of my interviewees, call a frame

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(Goffman, 1974), created and expressed through the narrative of ‘unity in diversity’. At the same time that frame is interpreted, filled with contents that are not necessarily what the official rhetoric might have wanted or expected. As in the case of the ‘common theme’ the rhetoric does not simply trickle down, nor is it simply abandoned or used in merely instrumental terms, and it is as such that it becomes relevant for identities, as we shall see in the next section.

Box 4.1 Everyday life in Bologna ECOC 2000: a field journal extract On Monday I arrive during the lunch-break and gradually various staff members begin to return. One is working on a page presenting Bologna 2000 which will appear in a publication of Santiago. We discuss what is best to put in it, general discourse, specific projects. We realize that there is material already translated into English which can be used. She begins to cut and paste . . . . Tuesday begins straightaway with the weekly meeting. On the fridge is the sticker of Café9, the internet café of the nine ECOC, with a strange stylized doodle next to it. The project manager asks if we recognize it. There is a general hubbub. She explains that it is Europe, stylized as if it is an electric circuit, a chip. Someone recognizes it straightaway, others don’t and have no problem admitting it, though once informed they recognize it and the sticker gets everyone’s general approval. Later on I speak with the project manager: even though the project is called Café9 there are in fact only seven cities actively participating. Nonetheless they preferred to keep this name because there are nine cities of culture, and they are desperately trying to get the two who are outside of the active part to be at least partly involved. Above all the meeting hinges on problems with the website, which are many. The afternoon proceeds with the meeting of the editorial team . . . . Wednesday at 12.30 there is the press conference presenting a group of projects which are part of the theme ‘A city of women and men’, I go as I was their contact person within Bologna 2000. The role of women in the cultural life of the city is emphasized, a gendered perspective, and each single initiative is presented. Each curator thanks the ‘Bologna 2000 City of Culture’


committee, often they forget or omit ‘European’. However, some emphasize the European dimension of their project, made of European partners or links with similar projects in Europe . . .

4.3 Local content in a European frame: identities in the ECOCs 2000 Given that the European dimension is open to interpretation, the direct voices of the people involved are key. My questions were also intended to understand the role that this dimension had for identity, as even from my previous more general analysis of the ECOC programme as a whole it had emerged that, however ambiguous and ambivalent, the reference to Europe was contributing to the self-representation of cities and the self-understanding of people living in them (see chapter 3), by the very repositioning and redefining of the cities as European. Still, asking organizers and artists about what they thought of the European dimension of the ECOC was not always easy. Here are some of their answers: A. Of course, the title of ‘European City of Culture’ does already give people the feeling of being European. Finns have rapidly become very European since Finland joined the EU. This in Finland very popular cultural project was a part of the process. Q. In which sense are projects developed within the AECC ‘European’? A. They just are European. They couldn’t be e.g. American. (Helsinki 2000 production manager) Even from beyond the EU5 the vision was similar, as we can see from the international projects manager of Reykjavik 2000: Q. What do you think it means, or should mean, European City of Culture? A. It can certainly have a wide-ranging definition. In the first place the city has to offer projects that are interesting for their own inhabitants and strengthens their identity and increases their awareness of what it means to be European.

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Q. How European, according to you, has Reykjavik 2000 been? A. What is European? Is there anything ‘European’ at all? Isn’t it everything originating from some specific country, city, language, roots within Europe? As Reykjavik is a part of Europe, anything offered there on the programme originating from that part of the continent must be European. It was very European up [sic] to my opinion. This shows just how difficult it can be to ask questions about Europe trying to go beyond the simple schemes that inform, for instance, Eurobarometer surveys that imply a zero-sum game between several ‘layers’ of identity. The highly reflexive, quasi-blasé attitude that many interviewees are able to display towards these issues, whilst still engaging with them as important, actually makes the questions asked in those large-scale surveys look even more inadequate. In particular, it leaves one wondering how they were received by the respondents, if even my much more open questions striving to be non-leading and not implicitly conveying a model (such as the model of nested identities conveyed by Eurobarometer surveys; see Risse, 2004) were often met with raised eyebrows and an air of superiority, and I had often to be told that these are very complex issues indeed. Like most fieldworkers, I had to put up with appearing naïve sometimes. At the beginning of my participant observation I would be surprised that an exhibition on The art of découpage would be considered a ‘European project’ simply because it had developed through a collaboration between an association from Bologna and one in Avignon. Staff members in the ECOCs mostly met my surprised reaction with a shrug, as they had all learned that that was precisely what the ‘European dimension’ was meant to be. So I too learned that this was fully in line with the history of the ECOC programme and of all EU cultural policy. Still, it is interesting to see how this had passed, gradually and mostly implicitly, into the interpretation of people involved in the ECOC, organizers and artists alike. I did find one dissenting voice, an academic curating an international conference on Frontiers of Transculturality, who, declaring a certain dissatisfaction, said: I would have preferred, I don’t know, some truly Europeanist initiatives, that I have not seen, I have not seen a truly European initiative, debates of exhibitions favouring this, there are many studies in the literary and philosophical field on the European spirit, and I think we should promote research of this kind.


This voice is interesting because it is quite isolated but shows the specificity of the actual way in which the European dimension is treated and that otherwise is simply taken for granted as the only possible one. A young project manager at Bologna 2000, following my repeated questions, did recognize that the projects shared by the ECOCs 2000 are, how can I say, more about doing something new together than about looking for what was there already [in common] before, maybe there should have been more research . . . it has been more about collaboration. It would have been very nice to find, to go back and see that after all cultures are similar for certain aspects. Still, such a direct thematization of the ‘European spirit’ encounters more opposition than approval. When I did ask my interviewees to go beyond the usual way of seeing the European dimension in terms of collaboration, I mostly obtained answers pointing either to the dangers of such operations, or dismissing them as not really in tune with the spirit of the age. In particular, from Bologna 2000, the curator of an historical exhibition on Aelia Laelia Crispis, a local, arcane inscription in Latin dating probably from the sixteenth century and that has long been ‘a European psychodrama . . . so that we really needed to have a scientific exhibition on it’, refuted my suggestion that perhaps a more direct thematization of Europe could have been part of the programme: Richness and diversity [of European culture] are documented with these exhibitions, not forcing these exhibitions to have a Europeanist objective. They document that which is there in the area, what is common in this culture which needs to display itself, there is no need . . . there is no need for a super-catalogue or a super-discourse, a meta-discourse given by an intellectual who explains what is common in these exhibitions or what is common in the culture shown in these exhibitions, that has to show itself, so to speak. From her wider perspective and in another tone, but coming to similar conclusions, is the coordinator of the cultural programming in Bologna 2000: I believe that we already live like European citizens, I don’t know if this is in the right or wrong way, but like something which already has little need [to be stated] . . . in which differences are softened,

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cultural differences too are softened, the trend, the fashion is elsewhere: if you want to show cultural differences you go and look for Africa, Asia, the Near and Far East, these are the things which seem to interest the public most. I believe the emergencies within each city are tied to their fluxes of immigration, that is the difference being experienced, not the difference between a Frenchman or Italian, or even between someone from Reykjavik or Prague, I think. Europe is neither at the forefront of programmes nor the object of research for its essence, not because it is irrelevant, but because it is taken for granted as one relevant context in a situation where cultural differences in Europe are softened, and no longer seen as menacing. As a taken-for-granted context, a common dimension of identity is not negated, but naturalized. The perception of ‘cultural differences’ is indeed the crux of the matter, and that on which the ECOC seems to have quite an impact, reframing them as richness rather than obstacle, as we have seen in the case of the joint and collaborative project within the nine ECOCs 2000. Nevertheless, critical voices kept saying that the overall result is far from clear. This is Robert Palmer’s answer, whose voice we have encountered more than once, to a question on how a cultural programme would go about representing European cultural identity: I think it’s impossible to achieve. I know this is one of the aspirations of the EU, but because we are dealing with very difficult definitions, I mean, one is this new definition of Europe, with all of these new countries and new identities, and second, how do you actually represent it . . . . What can be reflected in a programme rather than European identity is perhaps something I would call European diversity . . . . This I think has to be represented in a more global way now . . . I think in a cultural sense the world belongs to everybody, and perhaps it is no longer appropriate for a European City of Culture only to concentrate on this diversity of European identities, but maybe they have also to concentrate on the diversity of international, global identities. This quote and the previous ones can be interpreted as showing how the narrative of unity in diversity inscribed in the official aim of the ECOC is appropriated but redefined, its ambiguity used to exceed by far what was in the EU’s original vision. This had a very practical outcome, as indeed most cities in the year 2000 (but not only then) scheduled a


significant number of events dealing with non-European cultures, as well as projects with social, research or educational goals, where the cultural aspect was instrumentalized in multiple ways. As we read in the official report on the second decade of the programme: [m]ost ECOC also collaborated with artists or cultural organisations or presented performances and exhibitions originating from non-European countries . . . . All ECOC mentioned projects that were designed specifically to promote dialogue between the cultures of Europe and the cultures of other parts of the world. (Palmer/Rae 2004, vol. 1: 87) This may not seem very exceptional, but we have to remember that this is a programme which started with Athens and Florence celebrating their contribution to the ‘great European heritage’. In the year 2000, for instance, we saw how in Bologna ‘European’ and ‘extra-European’ projects were put in the same category of ‘Cultures/Europe’, and one of its flagship projects, attracting crowds to its squares, was a world music festival. Per Te [For You] was the title of this festival which brought to Bologna the stars of world music scene, taking over the city’s most prestigious and symbolic venues and historical sites. This was one of the major, most expensive projects, as well as the most successful of all in terms of public attendance. And as its artistic director, an Italian musician, told the press, this was a project for the European City of Culture because: ‘Music transcends and unites. Music has become a universal vector of peace. It supports the meeting of culture, reciprocal knowledge, exchange, tolerance, living together on earth.’ Even among the major exhibitions, the leading and most successful project had a local, a European and a more far-reaching outlook: Etruscan Princes between the Mediterranean and Europe was a well-researched and intriguing exhibition detailing the cross-fertilization of this still quite mysterious pre-Roman people, the Etruscans (who settled also in the area around present-day Bologna), with both Celtic populations from the north and southern and eastern Mediterranean influences. In Brussels 2000 too, the Zinneke parade celebrating the city’s multicultural fabric was so successful that it became a biennial permanent event and the term has come to be used by residents there to define the unique, hybrid mix of several communities, Flemish, Francophone and those of several other origins, which make up Brussels’ ‘true’ Bruxellois identity (Favell, 2008: 49). When seven of the nine ECOCs 2000 produced promotional short films presenting the city and the events, as a kind of a joint effort and

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following similar formats, several chose to rely on the gaze of the other to present their specificity. Not surprisingly, all of them chose young people as narrators but, less obviously, in three cases these were chosen from non-Europeans or European minorities: a young Columbian man writing letters back home for Cracow, two young black men (together with a ‘typical’ blonde girl) in Bergen, a French-Algerian in Avignon. As for the others, Brussels emphasized its two communities and presented itself as a friendly, liveable metropolis and the capital of Europe, Bologna stressed its primacy as ‘Europe’s oldest university’, whilst also showing an old granny making the famous tortellini; Helsinki, also narrated by a local girl, mainly presented everyday life; whilst Santiago stressed once again the role of pilgrimage in making Europe, as a Bolognese student met ‘by chance’ in a café is given the opportunity to stress. We can see from these productions how the gaze of the other remains a useful marker of identity, and these are ‘continental’ others, not national ones, whilst at the same time they are not really ‘others’ at all, being part of well-established, so-called minorities. It seems that once the issue of cultural difference is opened up, and national borders are surpassed, it becomes difficult to find a rationale to set new continental borders, and the step from a European to a more global, cosmopolitan outlook is built into the space that unity in diversity leaves open for interpretation. It may be because of this general focus on multiculturalism – or more specifically perhaps on a problematization of culture as monolithic and homogeneous – that my interviewees gave more positive answers to the question on a European identity than to that on a European culture. This is not only because identity is, especially as a practical, lay notion, even more ambiguous than culture, but because the focus on identity seems to contain more room for a forward-looking perspective, focusing on the active contribution of what people in Europe are building now, rather than on what we have inherited (as ‘cultural heritage’) from the past. Here the words of the director of Avignon 2000 are particularly relevant: In my view, there is not a European culture. There are European cultures and among them some that have historical links. However, the fact of establishing new cultural exchanges among European cities can allow, in the long term, the birth of a European cultural melting pot. I think that the example of new technologies and Internet, that of globalization of exchanges, gives an idea of what those exchanges can stimulate.


He also said he believed that activities such as the ECOC are useful to promote a sense of European identity, and articulated this further by saying: There are therefore European cultures regrouped within a . . . political European space. But one has always to begin from the beginning. There are things that have been started in this year 2000. I think for instance that [the dance initiative] ‘Transdance Europe’ has highlighted that the circulation of artists could favour the raising of a European identity. That will take many years. We can see how even one of the most negative views on the extent of a ‘common European culture’ does not rule out the possibility of an emerging European identity. Still, the majority of my interviewees responded positively to both the question on the existence of a European culture and on European identity. In both cases, when I asked what their elements, their characterizing features were, my interviewees found it more difficult to come up with an answer that they themselves considered satisfactory. Some mentioned those aspects that we might expect – Christianity, the Greco-Roman heritage, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the like. But rarely are these mentioned as a coherent whole or even less as an accepted, well-known ‘canon’ that could easily be recalled. Both for culture and identity my interviewees would rather not venture into too much specification. As the young marketing manager of Bergen 2000 (of Italian origin) exemplifies: ‘Feeling European, certainly yes. How, I would not know how to explain.’ This is closely echoed from Helsinki: ‘Yes, [a European culture] exists. Very difficult to make an analysis. European Culture has traditions and roots. Poor art works: less marketing products than e.g. in America. Europe doesn’t accept the “star culture”.’ In the ECOCs 2000, people might and do disagree on whether their ‘European dimension’ was successful or not, on whether Europe was a focus or not, but the idea that it should have been a focus even among those who said it had not is never challenged; it is a tacit, taken-forgranted approach, readily available when needed. Nor did anyone ever really challenge the European narrative of ‘unity in diversity’: some may see it as more likely or achieved in practice than others, but all seem to adhere to it, because it leaves interpretation open. When I asked my interviewees what they thought about the official aim of the ECOC ‘to highlight the richness and diversity of European cultures and the features they share, and promote greater mutual acquaintance between

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European Union citizens’, most said it was good, some said it was vague or difficult to realize especially given the means, but none said it was contradictory or irrelevant. Rather, for many it became the springboard to make them reflect on diversity in a wider or deeper sense, and started to see the objective as limited, but reinterpreting it rather than rejecting it. The next interview extract shows this well, as it is one of the most critical, but closes with a reappropriation of the European rhetoric for purposes that are certainly hardly there at the official level: I think it is a wrong objective [the official mission set by the EU] if it means a unification of thought, of worldviews, maybe even of the way we make apple cake. I think diversities are to be preserved . . . . What we really need to do today is open the borders, letting people from Albania (but also Turkey, Ukraine, and [so on]) to come and live and work and have children in Bologna and everywhere else in Europe . . . . Only when there will be this freedom will we be able to speak of the ‘diversity and richness of European cultures’. This young project manager from Bologna 2000 is echoed by the curator of a project quoted earlier (the philosopher organizing Frontiers of Transculturality), who found the official objective reductive, as it would need to include extra-European cultures to be really meaningful: For me, the European City of Culture is how Europe looks at other continents and is looked at by other continents and how Europe – I don’t want to say in the first half of the twentieth century, but in the second half, in the last few years – looks at other cultures without an attitude of supremacy but of open dialogue. The rhetoric of unity in diversity has allowed for an open character of the practices of the programme, often on the part of the EU itself struggling for coherence, as the very nomination of cities from nonEU member states (agreed in 1992 and in force until 20106 ) shows. If opinions do diverge on how and to what degree the ECOCs 2000 have been European, no one seems to question the fact that being so is or would have been important. Many organizers and artists have declared that participating in the ECOCs programme has made them feel more European, ‘having the sensation of being part of an ensemble’. Once again, in the few dissenting voices we find interesting elements: for those few who did not feel this increased European sentiment (and excluding those who declared themselves European from


the beginning), the ECOC has still not been identity-neutral. In this case, what it has meant is a refocus on other affiliations, mainly local or national ones (when the ECOC was also national capital, and mainly from small countries, such as Iceland), but always with a qualifying dimension which is actually the key point. Two examples are particularly evident. In Bologna 2000, the two relevant levels were the local and the European ones, so that those who did not feel more European because of the ECOC felt ‘rather more Bolognese’ but – and this I believe is the important point – adding the qualification ‘with a sense of openness’. This, as one interviewee put it, was about ‘a new civic pride, the sense of belonging grows, but not in a local sense’, but rather with a sense of the proximity of Europe. So that, in the end, the interviewee almost contradicted the initial response by concluding that ‘in an indirect way’ this new sense of belonging to the city also meant an increased feeling of Europeanness. Similarly, from Reykjavik, which in its candidature document presented Iceland as a ‘distinct and distinctive cultural area, a thread in the diverse tapestry of European culture’, and where no mention is made of its being outside the EU, my interviewee replied to my question on whether working for the ECOC programme made her feel more European, as follows: ‘I gained a lot of knowledge about some European cities that I did not have before. I became more acquainted with the continent. But working for the ECOC made me feel more Icelandic which means at the same time more European’ (emphasis added). The overall picture that emerges is far from clear or organized in well-delimited units that can be easily separated in different ‘layers’ or competing affiliations; but for this very reason it points to the fact that such a clear picture would be hardly useful as an interpretive tool. Here we have a clear indication that we need a different model and more complex metaphors than Russian dolls, concentric circles or zero-sum games if we want to be able to listen to what being, or becoming, European may mean to those who are beginning to recognize themselves in those terms.

4.4 Concluding remarks Many will continue to dismiss all this as empty rhetoric that may just work, as one key interviewee concluded, ‘on a totally symbolic level’. But there seems to be a need to reiterate that symbols are crucial in the framing of reality, and that not all symbols frame reality in the same way. The nation has been imagined as a culturally homogeneous community, and as a result enforced homogenization when required. The

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official EU rhetoric may convey a rather simplistic image of orderly, nested identities from the local to the European, which can be easily criticized and rightly so. But this does not mean that it will be exclusively used and interpreted as such by the recipients of the policies. To explore this, research on the ECOC has concentrated on the rhetorical space given by the formula unity in diversity, seeing how it works as both limiting and enabling. And not only rhetorically: as it has emerged for the ECOC 2000, this was reflected in the type of cultural contents that found a legitimated space within the ECOC programmes. The article on culture in the Treaty on the European Union may indeed, in its vague formulation of ‘common and diverse’ European heritage, still ‘not appear to take post-migrant heritage into account’ (Kiwan and Meinhof, 2006: 59) as a discourse-analytical approach has shown, but if we look at the practice, in ECOC programmes for instance, these ‘other’ contents have for many years found their way into the events, referring to the TEU for their legitimization. The ECOC 2000 as a whole, and my interviewees in particular, seem to take the implications of unity in diversity in the direction of what some authors today call cosmopolitan virtue or cosmopolitan recognition of the other, based on a vision of (European) culture more as a project and a co-operative construction than in terms of inheritance of and belonging to fixed cultural contents (which is, incidentally, also the direction taken by influential academic notions of European identity; see, for instance, Castells, 1996; Brague, 2002; Bauman, 2004; Beck and Grande, 2007). It may well be more the result of necessity than of virtue, but in the European Cities of Culture, the European framework could only gain wide acceptance on the condition that it would not impose a specific and exclusive content. Equally, though, the local, even idiosyncratic diversity of themes is permitted and encouraged, as long as the frame that enables and limits them is European and as long as no single content tries to become hegemonic.

Part III Europe as a Landscape: the European Landscape Convention


5 From Monuments to Landscapes: the European Landscape Convention

The Council of Europe has always focused on culture and cultural co-operation as one of its main missions. As we have seen, in this field it has often played the role of forerunner and think-tank for solutions later adopted by the EU. The continuous expansion of the latter, both geographically and in field of competence, may be seen as problematic for the COE’s continuing specificity, however its role as a laboratory of ideas – as its officials often like to define it – seems to be confirmed by the initiation of new themes and the ability to seize and promote new issues. One such example is the recent development of attention paid to landscape, an eminently interdisciplinary or intersectoral subject, whose many possible valences have been explicitly brought together under the cultural sector by the COE, or more precisely, within the activities of its Directorate for cultural and natural heritage. In particular, this attention has been realized with the introduction of the European Landscape Convention (ELC), launched in 2000 in the framework of the campaign ‘Europe, a Common Heritage’. The ELC entered into force in 2004 and is now adopted by the majority of COE members, increasingly affecting legislation, policy-making and stimulating a considerable amount of ‘European’ initiatives and agencies promoting its principles. The inclusion of landscape within the cultural sector is indicative of a strategic choice that makes these emerging European landscape policies relevant to issues of cultural identity. In the ELC, landscape is reclaimed as a distinctive element of ideas of Europe and, as such, key to far-reaching issues, such as quality of life, civil society participation in governance and – most importantly for the issue of redefining identity within Europeanization – of the importance of so called de-territorialization in contemporary society. The ELC Preamble defines its context as that of ‘changes in the world economy 141

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[that] are in many cases accelerating the transformation of landscapes’. Therefore, the new instrument is put forward, as the Preamble continues, with the rationale that ‘the quality and diversity of European landscapes constitute a common resource, and that it is important to co-operate towards its protection, management and planning’. Within the diversity of actual European landscapes, and as a means to protect them from the homogenizing effects of global flows, the ELC claims that the existence of a common European approach to landscape is a factor of its identity. The peculiar combination of the protection of diversity and promotion of unity that is the hallmark of all European cultural policies finds an extremely clear formulation here. This makes of the ELC and of the emerging discursive and practical field clustering around it a privileged interpretive key for public representations of Europe as cultural ‘unity in diversity’, a formula that has come to embody the main narrative of the identity of Europe elaborated by European organizations. Although commentators tend to dismiss that formula as mere rhetoric, it points to a problematization of the simple and essential correspondence between territory, culture and identity that long governed the orderly representation of the world as constituted of discrete (national) societies characterized by a narrative of (imagined) internal homogeneity (Anderson, 1983). Especially when seen from the angle of landscape policies, this provides a perspective to thematize Europeanization, as sociologists increasingly do, as a societal process leading to a form of social organization and cultural narrative achieving, or at least aspiring to, its own type of unity or coherence. In other terms, as a process within which the establishment of a new discursive field can be observed in the making. I therefore argue that a focus on how discursive solutions are reached, interpreted and put into practice by the actors involved – how the latter are both constrained and enabled by the new narrative of European identity – is a vital step if we are to understand Europeanization in its own terms, and as an example of contemporary institutional identity-building. As constructivist approaches have shown, the latter is not a one-way process. To consider the key role of institutional narratives in framing and making social reality should not mean falling back on an ideology critique that focuses exclusively on the constraining, intentional effects from the top down without acknowledging that enabling effects, as well as unintended ones, are equally relevant (for a discussion from the related field of environmental policy discourse also aimed at reaching both constraining and more elusive enabling dimensions, see Hajer, 1995).

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From the unusual perspective of these emerging policies – as an instance of cultural policy in a particular domain, and as a field where European co-operation seems to be leading the way whilst proposing its own specification of the narrative of European identity – Part III aims at providing a contribution to the growing, but still open-ended, debate on European identity. As in the case of the EU’s programme European City/Capital of Culture (Part II), the approach chosen has been one of a direct involvement, in order to explore what narratives and logics are made available in this field to define European identity and how they work. I have carried out fieldwork, involving document analysis, participant observation and interviews.1 As the ELC relies on local, networked actors, the international meetings and co-operation projects that constitute their main mode of operation have provided my case study. I participated in ELC-related European events, organized by the COE as well as independent initiatives, discussing with and interviewing ‘key informants’, from experts involved in the ELC drafting process to professionals experimenting with its implementation at various levels within European projects and networks. In this chapter, I introduce the European Landscape Convention and the policies it is promoting, taking into consideration how these fit into the wider picture of Europeanization, as well as how they relate to the even wider, and deeper, current struggle over the redefinition of cultural units and identities (section 5.1). I then trace how the ELC is creating a new discourse of (European) landscape and identity: I follow how the ELC arrived at its definition of landscape, what the actors involved do with the definition and what the definition does to them (notably in delimiting appropriate ways to talk, through landscape, of identities). This will be pursued by looking closely at the drafting process, through the direct words of the people involved (section 5.2), as well as through a consideration of the ELC in the field that it contributed to creating whilst claiming to respond to a ‘social demand’ for landscape (section 5.3).

5.1 Europeanization’s landscape As it is often premised on a comparison with the creation of the nationstate, and still conceived mostly as a political and legal process geared to economic and security issues, research on Europeanization tends to focus exclusively on major spheres and actors in those fields, that is, on major economic and security policies, and on national agencies and intergovernmental negotiations (see chapter 1). Instead, here we will be looking at Europe ‘from the margins’, as these are, sociologically,

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equally relevant, as a small but path-breaking body of sociological and anthropological work as shown by focusing on a ‘less formalized and less prioritized policy field . . . [that] reveals a wider set of actors and processes in action’ (Soysal, 2002: 270), thus allowing for a more fine-grained look into ‘Europeanization’. I have followed this approach in focusing on the emerging field of European landscape policies, which are indeed scarcely formalized and involve a very wide typology of actors. Landscape crosscuts sectoral policies in such traditional sectors as agriculture, the environment, culture, planning and tourism, and only recently is it gaining an independent status. Policy interest in landscape emerged during the 1980s in relation to the predicament of previous spatial and development policies in managing the increasing transformation of human surroundings and related ways of living (Nys, 2000). ‘Landscape policies’ can range from framework land use planning at several spatial scales, to the conservation of biodiversity, aesthetic and historical landscape features, to so-called landscape character assessments (comprehensive ‘atlases’ or ‘maps’ of specific landscapes), to awareness-raising campaigns that can include such wide-ranging initiatives as new training and university courses or as small-scale as the promotion of cultural and natural paths or even tree-planting events. The definition the ELC could find agreement on is very general and recursive: ‘ “Landscape policy” means an expression by the competent public authorities of general principles, strategies and guidelines that permit the taking of specific measures aimed at the protection, management and planning of landscapes.’ However, its inclusion in the COE’s cultural sector, as well as being first launched as part of the campaign ‘Europe, a Common Heritage’, clearly indicates that the COE sees it as one element in its main objective of fostering a comprehensive, cultural notion of Europe. Not surprisingly, given this situation and the relative weight of different disciplinary and national traditions – as expressed by the different meaning the term conveys in different contexts and by the variety of terms used to indicate it in the European languages, not all comparable and overlapping – as a policy object landscape has attained very different statuses in European countries. This was brought to light by a comparative review of national policies carried out on behalf of the COE in view of the ELC’s introduction – a usual preliminary step of Europeanizing policies as we have seen – which has shown how different ministries and different governmental levels are charged, if at all, with landscape or landscape-related matters according to different national and regional criteria and traditions (Prieur, 1998; see also section 5.2).


The EU shares this unevenness: on the one hand, there is no specific competence or explicit mention of landscape in the Treaties, but on the other, landscape is taken into consideration in several policies. This has become progressively truer as the EU started, along with its main programme of free market and security, to concentrate on the valorization of cultural and natural resources and on an equal development across its territory, the so-called cohesion policy. The latter, together with the Common Agricultural Policy, are the two policies that, combined, still cover the vast majority of the whole EU budget, and both include attention to landscape. In particular, since its ongoing reform from the late 1980s the CAP, one of the pillars of European integration since the 1960s, found a new argument in support of continuing subsidies in the protection of the rural landscape (as part of the new strategy of ‘rural development’), which was also reiterated in Agenda 2000, the strategic document for structural funds in 2000–6 (Daugbjerg, 2003). As well as these major policies, other sectors where the competence of the EU is only marginal are relevant to landscape, many of which are recent introductions of the Maastricht Treaty, and include culture, environment, transport and tourism. Notably, landscape also appears in the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), signed in 1999, a non-binding, strategic document that is essential to understanding the vision the Europe of the EU is trying to delineate for its territorial development (Rusca 2001; Scazzosi, 2001; see further below). However, we have to look beyond both nation-states and the EU. In Europe there is a wealth of actors dealing specifically with landscape, trying to make it the centre of unified and less fragmented interest, and doing so increasingly on a European stage. This takes the form of a growing number of national and international networks and advocacy groups, various in nature (to cite some among the most active and relevant: LandscapeEurope, Mediterranean Landscape Workshop, ECLAS-European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools, European Academy for Landscape Culture, as well as those directly related to the ELC such as the ENELC-European Network of local and regional authorities for the implementation of the ELC). Many of these date back only a few years, and either participated in or were established during the ELC drafting process (which they often explicitly mention in their own statutes). Often, they found financial support for their start-up or continuation in EU grant schemes (Interreg in particular, but also the Culture programmes and others), as well as legitimation through participating in COE events and enjoying a dedicated status as members of the Network of Partners of the ELC (Déjeant-Pons, 2006). NGOs can

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also participate in the INGO Conference of the Council of Europe and become observers of inter-governmental committees of experts. There is thus an identifiable and growing European level, where experimenting with the implementation of the ELC started often well before single countries had ratified it, with local, networked actors relating directly to the European level. In practical terms, ‘European co-operation’ means that in the new field national but also local and non-governmental actors, as well as the several disciplines that have a stake in landscape – from architecture to ecology, aesthetics to agronomy – are brought together, displacing previous hierarchies and consolidated affiliations. With this initiative to focus a treaty solely on landscape, presented as prompted from below by the ‘social demand’ these and other actors expressed, the COE could thus step in and fill a gap that somehow it had contributed to creating by providing an arena for discussion and a rationale for these new subjects. There is thus a distinctly Europeanized new field, as the ELC increasingly shaped the debate and is informing legislation at all levels across Europe. Its success is also confirmed by the rapidly increasing number of ratifications: it took from 2000 to 2004 for the ELC to reach the required minimum of ten ratifying countries, but since then it has gained momentum, and in 2009, 30 of the 47 countries of the COE have ratified, and several others are about to, having already signed it (see Table 5.1). Table 5.1 Signatures and ratifications of the ELC State

Signature

Ratification

Armenia Azerbaijan Belgium Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg

14/5/2003 22/10/2003 20/10/2000 20/10/2000 20/10/2000 21/11/2001 28/11/2002 20/10/2000 20/10/2000 20/10/2000 13/12/2000 28/9/2005 22/3/2002 20/10/2000 29/11/2006 20/10/2000 20/10/2000

23/3/2004 28/10/2004 24/11/2004 15/1/2003 21/6/2006 3/6/2004 20/3/2003 16/12/2005 17/3/2006 26/10/2006 22/3/2002 4/5/2006 576/2007 13/11/2002 20/9/2006

The European Landscape Convention 147 Malta Moldova Montenegro Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania San Marino Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom

20/10/2000 20/10/2000 8/12/2008 27/7/2005 20/10/2000 21/12/2001 20/10/2000 20/10/2000 20/10/2000 21/9/2007 30/5/2005 7/3/2001 20/10/2000 22/2/2001 20/10/2000 15/1/2003

18/11/2003

20/10/2000 17/6/2004 21/2/2006

13/10/2003 10/3/2006 21/11/2006

14/3/2002 1/5/2009 27/7/2005 23/10/2001 27/9/2004 29/3/2005 7/11/2002 26/11/2003 9/8/2005 25/9/2003 26/11/2007

Note: Situation as of March 2009. Remaining member states: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Russia. The ELC is open for signature by the member states of the Council of Europe and for accession by the European Community and the European non-member States. Source: Council of Europe.

The entry into force of a COE convention may not have such a tremendous and obvious impact, as its legal remit is limited, and largely dependent on member states for its implementation. For the ELC, it is about the consolidation of a set of principles rather than the enforcement of specific obligations (even its ‘specific measures’ have more the tone of principles than of policy indications; see Box 5.1) and indeed the next step is the elaboration of ‘Guidelines of Implementation’ (see Déjeant-Pons, 2006). This makes it particularly interesting sociologically: its significance is cultural, as well as legal. As in other cases of soft law, it becomes a tool for arguing within as well as across states, and its success lies in spreading a new way of framing its object and the related issues (Riles, 2000: 3–13; Burgess, 2002). The ELC rhetoric is, as we shall see in the next section, like many other European documents, the result of contrasting forces: if the initial impetus was certainly of a defensive type (‘against globalization’ in the name of the specificity of ‘place’) tendencies to essentialize landscape as the object of policies of mere conservation have been resisted, and landscape is defined in such a way as to include transformation rather than to condemn it. Definitions are

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always left sufficiently open-ended in order to allow for further adjustments to Europe’s many contexts and agencies. Similarly, the narrative of European identity in the discursive field generated by the ELC is not one of wholeness, essence and naturalness, but of openness, construction and, as even the Preamble alone shows, ‘unity in diversity’. This returns us to the theoretical and empirical issues that surround the debate on European identity, which we should briefly uncover again here (see Introduction and chapter 1), as landscape brings to the fore a perspective that focuses on the relation of cultural issues with spatial or territorial ones. That the official discourse of European identity settled for the inclusive, borderless narrative of ‘unity in diversity’, of which the ELC is but a particularly clear example, should be considered within the intellectual and political contexts of Europeanization, which are significantly different from those of nationalization. So that whether or not we see a European identity as meaningful depends on how the relationship between cultures, territories and identities is conceived – a topic that, as we have seen in the Introduction, is at the heart of the debate in social theory. The ‘cultural turn’ in social theory, and more specifically for the theme discussed here, the spatial turn it has fostered (Soya, 1996; Cook et al., 2000; Nash, 2002), has been crucial in creating the conditions for this debate. A new, spatially conscious sociology stresses mobility and flux over permanence, where notions of borders and structures are substituted by networks and flows. Whilst place itself is often described as one of the victims of the process, as it is transcended (Coleman, 1993), rendered phantasmagorical in time–space compression (Giddens, 1990), and loses distinctiveness (Augé, 1995), or precisely because of this, spatial considerations, concepts and metaphors are increasingly on the agenda of social theory (Crang and Thrift, 2000; Urry, 2000).2 Space and identities are conceptualized as non-essentialist (relational), non-univocal (multiple), non-fixed (mobile) and thus also non-representational (Massey, 2005). Dissonant phenomena and trends are mainly described as being in radical opposition, as the flipside of globalization’s coin; they are envisaged as ‘protective strategies of response to global forces . . . . The driving imperative is to salvage centred, bounded and coherent identities – placed identities for placeless times’ (Morley and Robins, 1995: 122). A clear and successful presentation in such binary terms that can be useful to recall here is Manuel Castells’ positing of a progressive dominance of a de-territorialized and undifferentiated space of flows over a locally bounded space of place (Castells, 1996). Castells’ place


is defined as ‘a locale, whose form, function and meaning are selfcontained within the boundaries of physical contiguity’ (ibid.: 411). The space of places is thus the resulting organization of human experience as rooted locally. The space of flows refers to an alternative organization, or spatial logic, where the reach and features of simultaneous social practices are both enabled and constrained not by physical contiguity but by the contemporary global flow of goods and people, signs and information. The opposition of flows vs. places reinforces that of globalization and identity as ‘conflicting trends’ (Castells, 1997: 1), and sees the first as dominating the second, which as a result reacts in surges of ‘communal resistance’, taking the form of ‘the reconstruction of defensive identities around communal principles. Most social action becomes organized in the opposition between unidentified flows and secluded identities’ (ibid.: 11). However, that the two logics are and would naturally grow further apart descends from the way the distinction is made as between poles in a zero-sum game. At its basis are assumptions on the nature of identity derived, ultimately, from an essentialist view: implied in the clear-cut distinction between flows and places, and globalization and identity, is the assumption that the second terms are only really themselves, ‘authentic’, when they are static and organized around a primary meaning (a locale or identification). Change brought about by flows amounts to loss and abstraction, so that a defence of identities centred on the past and cultural purity becomes the necessary reaction. Lip service may be paid to constructivism and agency at the macro (and elite) level, but at the micro level ‘the people’ are confined in essentialized places, whose narrative is always already written and local, and where identities feel natural. As the European one will never do. Indeed, the dominant view of Europeanization sees it as contributing to de-territorialization and loss of specificity, especially by those who see it as mainly an economic endeavour driven by a liberal ideology. In particular, and of much relevance given this article’s focus, an analysis of the recent EU strategic document on spatial development, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), has substantiated this received wisdom, by finding in it a clear dominance of a space of flows logic. As a contribution to a new cultural sociology of space, and on the basis of a discourse analysis approach, Ole Jensen and Tim Richardson analysed the ESDP, showing how emerging European spatial policy discourse informs new spatial practices, sustained by a cultural logic of polycentricity and hypermobility, which together shape the European space and give the notion of a nascent European identity a more tangible dimension by spatializing it. The authors argue that European spatial policy

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discourse disrupts the previous territorial order, creating new territories of control where some changes are made meaningful and supported, whilst others are prevented. Presented as an arena for different visions of such European space – as synthesized in the two competing logics of flows and places – the ESDP discursive and practical field appears dominated by a logic of flows over social cohesion and sustainable development, and thus over places. The conclusion is that a critical analysis of the re-presentations of space which form the new field of European spatial policy discourses reveals them as attempts to frame spaces in line with a particular ideology of European space, which asserts a new ‘space of flows’ as against a ‘space of places’ . . . The hegemony of the Europe of flows can only be understood as a mobility- competition- and growth-oriented discourse that derives its distinctive identity in opposition to a Europe of places. (Jensen and Richardson 2003: 10, 19)3 We are not told exactly what this implies for European identity but, given the premises, it would seem to follow that identity is supposed to remain based on the search for communal principles, leading to close, bounded identities, whilst European identity would be at best an elite phenomenon reserved for those who are familiar with the space of flows and related discursive devices (for a fuller account, see Jensen and Richardson, 2004). Rephrased in terms of the new spatial distinctions, this would seem to confirm the mainstream view that is informed by a binary logic and sees European identity as part of a zero-sum game. It may well be because we still lack a satisfactory image that we tend to fall back on binary logics – unity or diversity, places or flows – that inform the methods we use and the questions we ask. However, more nuanced visions of contemporary spatial logics at the basis of social organization and cultural identity are available. In particular, in one of the most influential accounts of globalization, Arjun Appadurai describes the contemporary ‘imaginary worlds’ created by global cultural flows, articulating the five dimensions of ethno-, techno-, finance-, media- and ideo-scapes. Landscape is used as a fundamental metaphor insofar as it signifies both the ‘fluid, irregular shapes’ of these imaginary worlds and that they are not ‘objectively given relations’ but ‘perspectival constructs, [in relation to the] situatedness of different sorts of actors’ (Appadurai, 1990: 50). Combined, these elements point to the active contribution and participation that people, rather than being alienated in unconnected places, are performing


in these imaginary worlds: these are certainly fed by flows, but the latter become part of ‘locality’ as lived experience. John Urry too, in his ‘mobilities manifesto’, prefers to consider places as sites of co-presence and flows, in order to account for the ‘not necessarily static and unchanging’ nature of places (Urry, 2000: 140). This follows an analysis where he advances the concept of landscape, associated with the rise of a leisure society that can have a detached, aesthetic attitude to its surroundings (see also Zukin, 1992), to address contemporary forms of belonging ‘intimately bound up with patterns of travelling’ (Urry, 2000: 139). According to Urry, today ‘[p]eople can indeed be said to dwell in various mobilities’ (ibid.: 157; see also Miller, 2006), and this is not only a matter of elites, those for whom landscape first became meaningful, from the beginning implying a capacity to appreciate difference, and different landscapes, being associated with the aristocratic experience of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ Grand Tour. Today’s mass tourism – real and virtual – has democratized this capacity, which has thus become an ‘ordinary’ refinement (see also Urry, 1995; Szerszynski and Urry, 2002).4 Szerszynski and Urry also quote Barrell’s The Idea of Landscape: ‘the aristocracy and gentry . . . had experience of more landscapes than one, in more geographical regions than one; and even if they did not travel much they were accustomed, by their culture, to the notion of mobility, and could easily imagine other landscapes’ (1972: 63), noting how this today is matched by experiences brought about by contemporary migration and mass-mediated imaginaries, as evidenced by Appadurai. What is particularly interesting from the perspective of this chapter is that the need for a concept that would allow one to avoid both abstraction and objectification leads different authors to turn to landscape and its derivates. In her Timescapes, Barbara Adam underlines how notions of landscape, including everyday ones, differ from binary images, of nature and culture in particular, because it has precisely the function to bring them together. Landscape

combines natural and cultural activities into a unified whole. . . . A landscape perspective, therefore, is inclusive; it gathers up sources of knowledge from both material and “immaterial”, visible and invisible sources. Such transcendence of materialistic and dualistic approaches become crucial for understanding a world of globalized local human activity . . . (Adam, 1998: 54)

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This is certainly an approach that the landscape experts I interviewed would like to subscribe to, and that even this short presentation of the ELC shows to be relevant for the discourse of European identity deployed there. But we should not rush to conclusions: like identity, landscape can be both an analytical and a practical concept, and the primary objective here is to consider the latter. Just as when dealing with ‘culture’ in the European City of Culture considered in Part II, we are not trying to propose yet another definition here, but rather to see how ‘landscape’ is actually used in discourse and practice, how it becomes a heuristic repertoire available to the actors involved. In this case, this means focusing on what people find in the concept (and policies) of landscape: the task is to see how landscape is articulated in the emerging field of European landscape policies, and what role it is called on to play, with a view to understanding the cultural and spatial logic of Europeanization through this emerging narrative that connects landscape to (European) identity.

5.2 The ELC discursive and relational field The COE is regarded by many as a counterpart of the EU’s main liberal ideology and economic and security focus, given its chosen mission in the field of human rights and culture, from its foundation in the aftermath of the Second World War, up to its early inclusion, shortly after the end of the Cold War, of Central and Eastern European countries. Its current aim is indeed, as we have seen (chapter 2), to promote a Europe ‘without dividing lines’. The ELC itself emerged out of this more general role of the COE within Europeanization, and its key passages neatly summarize this: [T]he landscape contributes to the formation of local cultures and . . . it is a basic component of the European natural and cultural heritage, contributing to human well-being and consolidation of the European identity. (Preamble) ‘Landscape’ means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors. (Article 1a) [Each party undertakes] to recognize landscapes in law as an essential component of people’s surroundings, an expression of the diversity


of their shared cultural and natural heritage, and a foundation of their identity. (Art. 5 a) The ‘diversity of common heritage’ is articulated through the idea of landscape, because diversity is seen as an element of all landscapes, not only between but also within landscapes. The landscape as experience of the unity of the nature/culture dynamics emerging through a plurality of specific characters – clearly resonant of recent theorizations (see section 5.1) – is presented as the very concretization of this formula, where diversity becomes an asset rather than an obstacle. In a recent COE document, a report on the ELC implementation in relation to the principles of sustainable development spells this out clearly: Landscape, inasmuch as it is considered to be a significant part of the common European heritage, can give visible coherence to the European principle ‘united in diversity’. . . . As the philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida have noted, in Europe ‘the recognition of differences . . . can also become the mark of a common identity’. If European landscapes are interpreted as the result of a particularly rich and expressive combination of a great natural diversity subjected to the action of peoples and societies also having diverse cultures, they become a direct spatial expression of the desire to preserve Europe’s unity in diversity. (Naranjo, 2006: 67) In this example of official rhetoric – here endorsed by one of the COE’s expert advisers – we may note that, regardless of the reference to Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, diversity still seems that of a multicultural paradigm framing cultures as bounded, though communicating, wholes. This might be seen as a Europe of discrete and static places (and cultures), which can be singled out and protected, much as has been noted for the Declaration of Cultural Diversity that the COE also issued in 2000 and for the COE (and EU) narrative of European identity in general (see Shore, 2000; Kiwan and Meinhof, 2006; Grillo, 2007). From this perspective, an interpretation of the ELC as a reaction of defensive identities against the ‘space of flows’ may seem to be exhaustive, and thus also to confirm the latter as a dominant logic informing the narratives of European identity. However, with a closer look at the ELC, one sees that diversity reaches deeper, as it is not only acknowledged in spatial terms strictly

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conceived, synchronically so to speak, but also diachronically through time, and socially through groups and communities, one type of diversity cross-cutting and problematizing the encompassing character of the others. As for diversity through time, articles of the ELC point to an acknowledgement – which makes a point of being neutral and not only defensive – of landscape transformation as inherent in the concept itself. This is why not only protection, but also management and planning – the latter referring to ‘strong forward-looking action to enhance, restore or create landscapes’ (Art. 1f) – is provided for. Thirdly, there is the idea that landscape contains social diversity: it will be perceived differently in relation to the beholder’s socio-cultural standpoint. Therefore, the identification of ‘the particular values assigned to [landscapes] by the interested parties and the population concerned’ (Art. 6C/b) is among the major measures to be taken. This results also in a particular emphasis on participatory policies, and on the public’s, rather than only the experts’ views on what is ‘landscape quality’ (Arts. 5–6). (See Box 5.1 for key passages of the ELC.) Still, to extract meaning from the apparently general (some may say celebratory) statements of the ELC and try to go beyond the simplistic vision that contrasts places and flows emerging from a mere textual policy analysis level, we cannot limit ourselves to the document only. As usual, meaning fully emerges when reception too is considered, without assuming it to be a passive process, and including in the picture the social (or relational) and practical context. In this section I pursue this by letting the significance of the new approach to landscape that the ELC proposes emerge out of a close consideration of the multivocal drafting process of the ELC, so that the different, contested meanings can be appreciated and the ELC situated in the wider field of emerging European landscape policies that it is promoting. According to the experts and public officials who participated in the drafting process, the ELC first originated in the early 1990s, from several motives. Before even the idea of a convention solely on landscape took off, a series of initiatives that turned out to be instrumental developed, especially in the field of cultural and natural heritage discourse, and in relation to rural landscapes in particular (though not exclusively). Parallel initiatives were emerging in several contexts, with actors from France and the UK, but also Italy and Spain being particularly proactive. Or, as one of the experts involved from the very beginning later evocatively put it, when presenting the ELC during one of the numerous European events following its ratification: ‘The ELC had two parents, a good idea for any child, one in the North and one in the South of


Europe.’ These found expression within both EU- and COE-related initiatives, as well as more global venues such as UNESCO and IUCN. They have ranged from the COE’s Culture Office creating a group of experts to elaborate a ‘Recommendation to Member States on the Integrated Conservation of Cultural Landscape Areas as part of Landscape Policies’ in the early 1990s, to a series of independent conferences whose final recommendations called for a convention on landscape by the COE. One of the first initiatives was a major conference, organized in 1992 in Bois by the UK Landscape Research Group and the French Paysage et Amenagement under the title ‘Landscapes in a New Europe: Unity and Diversity’, once again showing the continuity of this ‘new’ theme of landscape with the by now prevalent formula of ‘unity in diversity’. At this time the idea was still that of a COE instrument to protect the rural landscape. This was in particular a recommendation contained in the IUCN’s Parks for Life initiative of 1994 and in the EU’s European Environment Agency’s first report, Europe’s Environment: the Dobrís Assessment, of the following year. Another independent strand, less focused on rural landscape, but equally quite conservationist in intent, is the one leading to the Mediterranean Landscape Charter (signed in 1993), an initiative of some European Regions (Italian, French and Spanish in particular). A small but determined group of individuals were behind these initiatives and were often involved in more than one; they would provide the experts for drafting the convention too. This happened under the aegis of the COE’s newly established Congress of Local and Regional Authorities (CLRAE), a fact that interviewees from local governments in particular often stressed in order to demonstrate the ELC origin ‘from below’. So in the second half of the 1990s the roots that had been emerging were brought together, favouring the case of those wanting a comprehensive convention on landscape; the committee of experts created for the purpose was in fact commissioned to ‘to draw up, on the basis of the Mediterranean Landscape Charter, a framework convention on the management and protection of the natural and cultural landscape of Europe as a whole’. The drafting itself involved government and civil society experts from different national and disciplinary contexts, culture and environment being the main ones. In practice this meant that, from 1995 to 1998, subsequent drafts of the ELC were elaborated by an expert committee and submitted to public hearings for amendments (see also Dower, 2006). The EU participated in the drafting (both the Commission and the Committee of the Regions), as did UNESCO, INGOs such as IUCN, and representatives of the regions of Andalusia (Spain), Languedoc-Roussillon (France) and Tuscany (Italy) which had promoted

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the Mediterranean Landscape Charter and which was now always mentioned as the direct antecedent of the ELC. Moreover, ‘in accordance with the principle of consultation and participation’, invited experts from several sectors (or better, landscape experts from different countries and professional backgrounds, with different approaches to landscape) were also consulted. This helped to give substance to that ‘social demand of landscape’ on the part of both specialists and the public at large which the ELC claims to respond to, and would otherwise remain vague. Key figures in the elaboration of the first draft were a French academic and the head of the UK Countryside Commission, as well as a French legal adviser. The committee also included a Swiss architect, a Spanish geographer and representatives of the COE’s departments of both cultural heritage and nature conservation. Some of the experts changed, but the key figures remained constant and continued to follow the convention after 2000, that is when – after a version was presented at a major international conference held in Florence in 1998 and further consultations and amendments carried on in a similar fashion for another two years – the ELC was open to signature. As reported by one of the experts involved, discussion did indeed start with the idea of the ‘protection of beautiful European landscapes’ as we might have expected given the premises; however, an opposing view, addressing ‘normal, and in particular everyday landscapes of the mass of Europeans’, turned out to be more convincing and distinctive, and so the group set out to write a comprehensive convention. Also, according to the COE official in charge of co-ordination, the strength and peculiarity of the ELC is that ‘for the first time specialists of culture worked together with specialists of nature’, and if at the beginning everyone seemed to promote their own view, ‘real dialogue’ and exchange were achieved. Participants at the time recall discussion ‘word by word’ of early drafts, but also that nobody seemed fixed on ‘general positions pre-established by ideology or scientific approach’. This is echoed by another expert on the drafting committee, which also stressed the contributions made at the hearings by individual experts as well as government representatives from both large and small countries and also by inter-governmental bodies and NGOs, making the ELC a real ‘European document’ elaborated through painstaking consultations: From the beginning, we perceived the landscape as a uniting force between nature conservation and cultural heritage, which till then had been treated separately by the Council of Europe, with separate


Committees and Conventions. This decision attracted the support of countries whose traditional approach to landscape is based on nature conservation (for instance, Netherlands, Czech Republic), or on cultural values (Italy), or on romanticism (UK). This wide view is indeed embodied in the text. As the first expert quoted above put it, during the drafting process a few themes held centre-stage. These were: the place of ecology, which some, especially from northern Europe, tried to impose as predominant, but which was instead subordinated to the idea of people’s well-being and surroundings; the place of the people, which from the beginning was generally agreed should be central; semantic issues (of words such as project, creation: ‘the word creation that some of us wanted in order to signify that landscapes can be created, has been refused by Spain, because creation is divine and divine only! So we limited ourselves to planning’) and finally of landscape values (‘we agreed on “system of values” and we have not gone into too much detail’). The Spanish geographer collaborating on the drafting describes the process in similar terms, neatly summing up the results: In my opinion, there have been three decisive agreements, very lively debated: the definition of landscape as a reality simultaneously objective (which allows the development of policies) and subjective (that calls for social participation as a priority); the idea that all territory is landscape (idea that breaks with previous considerations always referring to highly valuable and exceptional sites); the idea that to deal today with landscape requires the triple action of protection, management and planning (the ELC widens the scope of earlier, merely protectionist measures. Indeed, even if the definition of landscape may seem general at first sight, it does contain, or at least point to, a specific approach that is quite distinctive from a mainstream or common-sense view of ‘heritage’, as we shall see in the next section. It was in fact not easy to reach agreement on that definition, which had to face semantic as well as organizational differences. The comparative study of landscape policies in Europe carried out during the drafting process had revealed huge variety and a general situation of confusion. Moreover, as the author notes with surprise: ‘It is a striking fact that in the case of countries sending replies from several different authorities, these replies were significantly at variance to or even contradictory of one another’ (Prieur, 1998: 37).

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Only at the beginning of the twentieth century did ‘landscape’ first became the direct subject of legislation. The first countries to introduce this were Belgium, France, Spain and Switzerland, in connection with national parks or the use of hydroelectric power. To this day very few have a specific law or policy on ‘landscape’, and even those that do rarely define it, so that the definition is left to the public, current notion in a specific context. Many countries still only deal with landscape indirectly or implicitly, and this is a major source of confusion. Virtually everywhere certain aspects of landscape in sectoral laws are taken into account. However, the study also notes in recent years an increasing focus of interest, both in domestic and in international law, and the dominance of two competing or complementary approaches: ‘landscape as a reflection of history and culture, with special emphasis on historical monuments in their settings, or on artificially-created gardens and parks; landscape as a bio-physical element, treated as part of the human approach to the countryside’ (Prieur, 1998: 21). The document also classifies three policy styles or modes of regulation in connection with the different notions held: under legislation on historic monuments and sites, emphasizing landscape as the reflection of beauty and aesthetic value; under legislation on protection of the environment, emphasizing landscape as the reflection of a vision of outstanding natural spaces and environments, given form in parks and reserves; under legislation on land use and town planning, emphasizing landscape as the reflection of both a natural and cultural vision of space and recognizing the intrinsic value of even ordinary landscapes. (ibid.: 11) Also in international law, whether of a binding or non-binding character, landscape is attached to three special sectors: historical and cultural heritage (e.g. UNESCO’s Convention on World Heritage, 1972), natural environment (COE’s Bern Convention on the conservation of wildlife and the natural environment of Europe, 1979) and town and country planning (EU’s European Spatial Development Perspective, 1999). In short, prior to the ELC, a list of instruments on landscape at the international level includes at least one international convention and nine regional conventions mentioning it. At the national level, in COE countries four national constitutions contain direct references to landscape, with another six doing so implicitly or indirectly (mainly in terms of the environment); five countries have special legislation on landscape, four countries special procedures for specific landscapes, and


virtually all countries have a system of protected areas justified in terms of landscape. What the study pinpointed as particularly lacking is a focus on information and participation activities, which then became a major focus of the ELC (see Box 5.1).

Box 5.1 The ELC’s specific measures at national and European level Article 6 – Specific measures A. Awareness-raising Each Party undertakes to increase awareness among the civil society, private organizations, and public authorities of the value of landscapes, their role and changes to them. B. Training and education Each Party undertakes to promote: a. training for specialists in landscape appraisal and operations; b. multidisciplinary training programmes in landscape policy, protection, management and planning, for professionals in the private and public sectors and for associations concerned; c. school and university courses which, in the relevant subject areas, address the values attaching to landscapes and the issues raised by their protection, management and planning. C. Identification and assessment 1. With the active participation of the interested parties, as stipulated in Article 5.c, and with a view to improving knowledge of its landscapes, each Party undertakes: a.

i) to identify its own landscapes throughout its territory; ii) to analyse their characteristics and the forces and pressures transforming them; iii) to take note of changes; b. to assess the landscapes thus identified, taking into account the particular values assigned to them by the interested parties and the population concerned. 2. These identification and assessment procedures shall be guided by the exchanges of experience and methodology, organized between the Parties at European level pursuant to Article 8.

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Box 5.1 (Continued) D. Landscape quality objectives Each Party undertakes to define landscape quality objectives for the landscapes identified and assessed, after public consultation in accordance with Article 5.c. E. Implementation To put landscape policies into effect, each Party undertakes to introduce instruments aimed at protecting, managing and/or planning the landscape.

European Co-operation Article 7 – International policies and programmes Parties undertake to co-operate in the consideration of the landscape dimension of international policies and programmes, and to recommend, where relevant, the inclusion in them of landscape considerations. Article 8 – Mutual assistance and exchange of information The Parties undertake to co-operate in order to enhance the effectiveness of measures taken under other articles of this Convention, and in particular: a. to render each other technical and scientific assistance in landscape matters through the pooling and exchange of experience, and the results of research projects; b. to promote the exchange of landscape specialists in particular for training and information purposes; c. to exchange information on all matters covered by the provisions of the Convention. Article 9 – Transfrontier landscapes The Parties shall encourage transfrontier co-operation on local and regional level and, wherever necessary, prepare and implement joint landscape programmes. Article 10 – Monitoring of the implementation of the Convention 1. Existing competent Committees of Experts set up under Article 17 of the Statute of the Council of Europe shall be designated


by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to be responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Convention. 2. Following each meeting of the Committees of Experts, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe shall transmit a report on the work carried out and on the operation of the Convention to the Committee of Ministers. 3. The Committees of Experts shall propose to the Committee of Ministers the criteria for conferring and the rules governing the Landscape award of the Council of Europe. Article 11 – Landscape award of the Council of Europe 1. The Landscape award of the Council of Europe is a distinction which may be conferred on local and regional authorities and their groupings that have instituted, as part of the landscape policy of a Party to this Convention, a policy or measures to protect, manage and/or plan their landscape, which have proved lastingly effective and can thus serve as an example to other territorial authorities in Europe. The distinction may be also conferred on nongovernmental organizations having made particularly remarkable contributions to landscape protection, management or planning. 2. Applications for the Landscape award of the Council of Europe shall be submitted to the Committees of Experts mentioned in Article 10 by the Parties. Transfrontier local and regional authorities and groupings of local and regional authorities concerned, may apply provided that they jointly manage the landscape in question. 3. On proposals from the Committees of Experts mentioned in Article 10 the Committee of Ministers shall define and publish the criteria for conferring the Landscape award of the Council of Europe, adopt the relevant rules and confer the Award. 4. The granting of the Landscape award of the Council of Europe is to encourage those receiving the award to ensure the sustainable protection, management and/or planning of the landscape areas concerned.

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In this fragmented situation, which is only now starting to become a recognizable field, thanks to the new European initiative, it is not surprising that the first thing the ELC stimulates, at several levels, is a debate on what landscape is and how it should be an object for policy, a debate that, being stimulated by this instrument, has Europe as term of reference. The idea now to reunite the different strands that have dealt with landscape under policies that claim to be (and are officially classified as) cultural is revealing, and goes with the COE’s own field of competence and outlook towards a Europe ‘without dividing lines’. In this context, the work of finding a common definition of landscape was already a work on identities, as another expert involved in the drafting sums up: In fact, there are 100 official languages in the 46 members of the Council of Europe, and more than 100 words to say ‘landscape’. Some languages have more than one word. This is why the Convention sets out by giving a shared, common meaning to the term ‘landscape’. During negotiations, this definition has been the object of long discussions. If we reached an agreement on the definition, it is because we looked for what we have in common among the different states and not in what we differ. Remembering those discussions still moves me because we had to reach a quite elevated conceptual level to reach that agreement. In that framework, ‘identity’ (in the sense of European identity) is what we have in common and that allows us to negotiate . . . It is important to notice that one of the objectives of the Council of Europe is to ‘foster the awareness and valorization of the cultural identity of Europe and of its diversity’, which explains that this objective can be found in the European landscape convention too. That identity should be mentioned in the text was more or less taken for granted by the people involved, given the COE’s more general mission, so that this idea was integral to the motivation of the experts’ committee. One interviewee, an Italian academic participating in the later stages (since 1999), even said that ‘one of the ideal motivations, one of the motivations [for participating in these initiatives] is that of saying “let’s help the process of political unification of Europe”, even now [after the ELC has been completed], those who are committed at least in the Council of Europe on these issues do have this idea a bit, to contribute to unification’. Moreover, many countries, notwithstanding their different approaches, share the attempt to assess or characterize


their landscapes, stressing their variations as well as distinctiveness, leading to a consideration of landscape’s role as both a reflection (some said that landscapes are a ‘metaphor’ or even a ‘projection’ of society) and a component of identity. Once in the European arena, as one interviewee put it, ‘we simply extrapolated the idea to the whole of Europe’.

5.3 A social demand for landscape The state of permanent consultation continued after the ELC launch, as can be appreciated when considering related texts and events. These include the periodical Conferences of the COE on the ELC in Strasbourg, the annual Workshops for the Implementation of the ELC and the Informational National Seminars on the ELC hosted by a different country each time, as well as an increasing number of independent ‘projects’, ‘workshops’ and ‘networks’ across Europe. These initiatives sometimes defy the distinction between event and network (as well as between policymaking and implementation, and more importantly between top-down and bottom-up), being periodical events that create de facto networks of people collaborating on a regular basis, or being networks whose major activities are workshops and meetings. All this has produced a vast amount of documents and the like, composing the wider discursive, relational and practical field clustering around the ELC. This is creating the new field of European landscape policies where they often hardly existed as such at the national level, as well as a new figure, European landscape experts formed by and sharing the new approach and perspective, and thus now firmly inhabiting the new field they have contributed to creating. To sum up, the meaning of the ELC as it emerges both against the background of the discussions that reached the final formulations and from the wider discursive and relational field that is taking shape since ratification is presented and interpreted by practitioners as a dramatic shift in approach to cultural and natural heritage matters, from which it had originally stemmed. A shift, in their terms, from a monumentalist approach to a landscape approach, which, briefly put, implies a more comprehensive outlook, where all territory is landscape, rural and urban, exceptional and common – one is tempted to add, both places and flows – so that from an emphasis on outstanding value and its preservation the focus shifts to everyday value and quality of life, with a more dynamic vision that includes management and planning as well as protection. According to the people who helped write the

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convention, or later enthusiastically adopted it, a key element is that social perception is now integral to the definition of landscape. Notwithstanding some of the original defensive inputs, landscape is therefore freed from the conservative, élite, nostalgic connotations it has in some traditions, and change and transformation are seen as its normal components rather than as pathological. Once again, in the words of one of the drafters: the convention has to improve the surroundings of the people, and not just protect plants, insects or other nice little beasts. I have to say that for me this is the fundamental condition of acting on landscape. The point is not to create beautiful landscapes to make planners and aesthetes happy, but for the well-being of the Europeans. Testament to this new approach is the absence of a list of landscapes of special status. Many of the initiatives quoted in the ELC as its forebears (the UNESCO World Heritage Convention in particular) require such lists. Instead, in the ELC the list was not only avoided, but positively rejected, as demonstrated by the fact that a drafted article on a ‘List of Landscapes of European Significance’, an idea that had been there since the beginning as part of the very rationale of the convention, has been dropped, and all my interviewees that commented on it saw it as a positive confirmation that the approach of the ELC was not mere rhetoric, but a real effort to promote a new, more inclusive vision of landscape. One expert, a French geographer member of the drafting committee from the start, also correlated this not only to the specificity of landscape, but of Europe as well: It was a long and difficult discussion [concerning whether or not to keep the List] which I think not everybody fully understood. We told ourselves that a country might, for example, nominate a landscape that was a symbol of a fight or war, and we found that dangerous, because it meant to feed what brought about European wars, that is nationalism. [Here instead it] is about the Europe the Council of Europe wishes for, of peace among peoples. Whilst this is confirmation of the struggles to create any narrative of European identity, it also hints at how this is not something that only European (EU and COE) officials are concerned about and have a say in, but that the search for a new type of imagination is a wider process,


only partly controlled, especially in its interpretation, by European organizations themselves. It is difficult to say clearly how the proposal to abolish the list from the ELC was advanced and the decision reached, as people, even people directly involved at the time, have different recollections. However, they all agree that it is a strength of the convention rather than a weakness, and a mark of distinction. Some say it may not be a definitive solution, but that the topic will be taken up only when and if a way is found to avoid the perverse effects; namely, that by selecting a few landscapes as significant ‘the rest will simply feel not significant’. This would go precisely against the ELC’s main point of considering and valuing all territory, and it would thus reintroduce an ‘elitist’ component. Indeed, and especially because in many countries or traditions ‘landscape’ (as heritage) has conservative, nostalgic and elitist associations, quite a few make a point of underlining that exclusivist turns should be avoided, and that this is the sense of claiming the ELC as responding to a ‘social demand’. Again the member of the drafting committee quoted before makes a point of underlining that: ‘Social demand, for me, is a demand for surroundings (cadre de vie) that provide well-being and within those surroundings there is an idea of social justice. Landscapes must not be segregational or be appropriated by the richest to the detriment of the poorest.’ Because, as another key figure in the drafting process, also a Frenchman, said: there is in landscapes a metaphor of societies, or in any case a ‘projection’ of societies on the territory, as it is well expressed by the Convention‘s definition as ‘an area, as perceived by people’. You will notice that [in French] it says ‘populations’ [in the plural] and not ‘population’, which points to a collective notion as wide as possible and not restricted, for instance, to ‘inhabitants’ or tourists’. As an element of the current public discourse of European identity, this non-monumental, non-essentialistic notion of landscape – just as there is no list of ‘special’ landscapes, so there is no list of features a landscape must have – is relevant, of course, precisely because landscape does not per se sustain such an approach. On the contrary, in the natural and cultural heritage discourse within which it has largely been framed – which is, of course, a national heritage discourse – landscape is conceived as a special kind of monument and as such conceived as a ‘compelling symbol of national identity’ (Lowenthal, 1993: 6). The existence of national, as well as disciplinary, difference and contrasts

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across Europe reinforces this received view, as these are, after all, the objections that Europeanization, especially in the field of culture, constantly faces. Conversely, landscape could have been appropriated as specifically European. That would not have been unprecedented or surprising – after all, Europe has claimed as its own rationality, feudalism, capitalism, love, family, even civilization (see the critique in Goody, 2006; and chapter 1 above). There would even have been a tradition to build on, from Jacob Burckhardt’s observation of the Renaissance’s discovery of the aesthetic dimension of landscape (Burckhardt, 1860) – sustained by the development of landscape painting as different art historical analyses have pointed out – to the Romantic theme of landscape as a compensation for modern man’s estrangement from nature developed at the turn of the twentieth century by Georg Simmel as one of the revelatory signs of the modern condition.5 However, such appropriations have become less fashionable, for institutions maybe even more than for academics. None of my interviewees talked of landscape in these terms, and when I tried to ask directly those more involved with the definitional issues if they thought landscape was a modern or European concept most simply said no, though some accepted modern but not European. In the ELC there are no hints of such an appropriation, nor in the wealth of documents surrounding it, as far as I can tell. This is another hint of a de-essentialized concept of identity and culture. Of course, it is only a hint about dominant concepts; it does not imply that there are no competing discourses; on the contrary, in this contested field, the ‘solution’ found by the ELC to the problem of how to find a specificity without creating exclusion, or, in the terms that we have become familiar with so far, to connect landscape with unity and diversity, as well as flows and places, is interesting because it is not to be taken for granted, rather it is indicative of a choice, of an incremental shift connected to the material and cultural conditions of the ELC’s elaboration. These conditions are such that they require the reframing of diversity as positive, not as a lesser evil, but as a value; whilst at the same time the acknowledgment of one type of difference soon leads to others, with the result that even ‘national’ differences are just one type among many, losing that exclusive and encompassing character which was supposed to be their characterizing feature. As its partiality is exposed, the national option for imagining identity as unity is thus both made unavailable for Europe and also marginalized. This is at least what I found through constantly observing and asking about what differences, if any, landscape experts found in the approach to landscapes at European venues: most said national and disciplinary differences, others


pointed to professional (for instance, elected politicians vs. experts vs. managers, and so on) or even personal (for instance, age) ones; most saw a complex combination of these rather than a clear predominance, disciplinary and national being the more relevant, often combining in recurrent patterns. However, even if banal, feel-good remarks such as ‘everyone has been keen to learn from each other’ or ‘there are strengths and weaknesses in all approaches’, mostly concluded my interviewees’ comments, it is clear that the overall effect of working together with these multiple differences has been that they defuse and relativize each other, creating criss-crossing alliances and ultimately preventing any simplified, unitary solution, discursive and practical. Landscape as conceived in the ELC is indeed, as one expert put it, ‘a new subject, and as such it generates greed’, but the very fact of producing this field of tensions as a European one means that the ELC has a role, and provides an insight into Europeanization, especially conceived in spatial and cultural terms. The ELC’s choice of legitimate discursive solutions is indicative not only of a choice of position in a field, but of a redefinition of the field itself (the people involved sometimes describe the ELC as a new paradigm), framing its own range of possible legitimate logics, excluding others as irrelevant or illegitimate.

6 Europe as a Landscape: Unity in Diversity in Practice

Having clarified the peculiar world of landscape policies, we can concentrate more directly on how the narrative of European identity is used and interpreted, when it is, by people affected by these emerging policies. Like many other European initiatives, we have seen how the ELC is the result of dozens of documents and meetings, several subsequent drafts and public presentations, formal and informal expert consultations, before and after its signature. This repetition contributes to making it relevant, for as well as being a legal instrument the ELC is about spreading a ‘language’, which is a language of identity. Needless to say, there is always some ‘urgent cause’, for instance, the decay of the rural landscape leading to wider reflection on landscape and what brings about its transformation, here legitimated by the ‘social demand’ of its solution. However, an underlying outcome and objective is building a ‘community’, the networking itself, which stands as a practical demonstration and legitimization of the Europeanization it propounds. This symbolic relevance has very tangible results, which we can now follow more closely by focusing on how the ELC’s interpretation by different actors is incorporated in initiatives that are meant to ‘implement’ or experiment with it. Within the field clustering around the ELC, what has been described in other circumstances as a ‘communicative miracle’ seems to take place, as people from very different backgrounds and ‘languages’ (both national but, more importantly, often disciplinary and political) find a way to understand each other, whilst maintaining their different positions (Hajer, 1995, has found this ‘miracle’ in environmental discourse). Rather than remain trapped in a critique of this new 168

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discourse’s – of landscape and of European identity – ambiguity or incoherence we should seize the opportunity to reconstruct how this complex, multidirectional process of the production of meaning, of which actors are particularly conscious, takes place. In order to probe this issue more deeply, this chapter is presented thematically, drawing on the different data sources: interviews, observation, documents. I begin by discussing how networking itself affected and shaped the debate and is a key element of the Europeanization of this field (section 6.1). I then turn to the ELC’s pilot actions and experimentation, carried out again within networks and transborder collaborations, this time focusing on how the substance of what they have achieved is presented, officially and in the accounts of the people involved (section 6.2). Finally, I look at how all this points to a new cultural and spatial logic at the basis of the definition of identities, for the collectivities and individuals involved (section 6.3).

6.1 Landscapes of Europe, Europe as landscape The official rhetoric of European identity seems to have become so much a part of the tacit knowledge of the people familiar with the ELC’s field that in order to elicit comments on what ‘unity in diversity’ really meant for them, I had to raise the subject directly. To do so I asked my informants to comment on the ELC’s claims that landscape ‘contributes to the formation of local cultures . . . and European identity’ and is ‘an expression of the diversity of their shared cultural and natural heritage’. Their answers vary, but there are also some aspects that are never questioned: I think it’s a valuable thing to state, but also important to notice that ‘local cultures’ is in the plural (cultures not culture) and so in practice should be European identity. Isn’t it always best to talk about identities (any individual has more than one, so a community or a nation will have an infinite number, one of them being European? And landscape (and the diversity within it) is a major part of the sense of being European . . . . all of Europe’s landscape has things in common, and all are different . . . . Landscape can be said to be an idea not a thing, and to be the way that people relate themselves to the world around (or even more distant from) them. People may not use the word landscape, but they always construct what the ELC calls landscape when they look around them. (senior official of English Heritage)

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From the broader and not exclusively European viewpoint of an expert for the international organization for the conservation of nature, IUCN, came a strong echo: I agree strongly [with the ELC’s formulation]. The landscape is an expression of how each society in Europe has interacted with its environment over time. This creates the rich and diverse pattern of landscapes that we enjoy today, one that reflects the individual and shared histories of the peoples of Europe, and which also contains numerous natural and cultural values of local, national and European significance. The landscapes of Europe, like its art, architecture and indeed nature, forms part of a common European heritage and helps to give European peoples their identities. No contradiction is seen in the phrasing of the ELC. Contradiction is excluded, the desirability of this approach never questioned. There is widespread and unvarying acceptance of ‘unity in diversity’ as a representation of the European cultural space, from a variety of positions regarding its current state of realization or likelihood. What this excludes is homogeneity and stability as essential features of landscapes and, by implication, of identities. Indeed, I was told that a first proposal for the definition of landscape was ‘Landscape means a homogeneous area’, but that the qualification ‘homogeneous’ was, after much debate, excluded, which for my informant was a key achievement as the search for homogeneity often leads to exclusivist notions of identity. ‘Unity in diversity’ may well be a temporary, rhetorical solution, however it seems to work quite well as such, as a discursive tool to face challenges that are always only temporarily and contextually resolved. It is mostly through using landscape itself to give examples that my interviewees would articulate this, as in this passage from an interview with a senior official of the UK ministry DEFRA: ‘There are many tensions between “common” (at scales from global downwards) and “different”, and every landscape reflects a particular resolution of them. And, of course, they are constantly changing.’ The same interviewee concluded about the final version of the ELC definition: The Convention definition is a good attempt to encompass the meaning of landscape in all member states. The key point is the reference to ‘as perceived by people’. Landscape is a cultural construct. We no more want to homogenize the landscapes of Europe than we want to homogenize the cultures of Europe. The objective of European


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projects is to learn from each other and celebrate the diversity in European landscape. These discursive solutions are certainly not as neutral or allencompassing as they may claim to be. They have specific characters and dangers (including, of course, new forms of exclusion). However, they do not seem to suggest an identity asserting itself against diversity and change, a defensive identity. Still, identity is considered as something to be handled with care: explicit, strong notions of identity and their tendency to become objectified are treated with suspicion. Identity is a contested, dangerous concept, which some of my interviewees say they would rather not use at all. At the same time, there is a selfconscious concern with not abandoning it to the clutches of those who could use it in exclusivist terms. Indeed, asking how and when identity came about when discussing the ELC and its implementation, I was told that the issue of identity is only put on the agenda when it is ‘safe’ to do so, when there is no risk of its being used as an instrument of exclusion. In the words of a senior official of the relevant French ministry, a key figure in the ELC drafting and implementation: Do we discuss identity [at ELC-related events]? Rarely, because there is a principle according to which we should avoid (publicly at least) speaking of subjects that risk creating disagreement . . . . But if it is true that we do not hold official workshops on identity, we actually discuss it a lot and often, as we are now. Taking into account how big assemblies work, where representatives of several countries have a place, it is often wise not to launch a debate without having estimated the field it can cover. We have sometimes heard interventions from the platform that let us think that a minimum of pre-agreement among participants has to be acquired before launching a forum (what could we reply to somebody asking us to back her position of wanting to eliminate all immigrants that endanger the cultural identity of her country? We have been confronted with such a situation). This also points to the issue of minorities that are quite numerous in Europe . . . the European ideal is still today an ideal. These cases of actual silencing are rare; normally the frame works implicitly. But in this extreme case we can best see the limits of this discursive field, how it rules out certain logics, so that interpretations do vary, but only within the legitimate frame. These meetings and debating occasions the interviewee was speaking of are the main vehicle for the

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consolidation of that frame. It is on such occasions that new ‘epistemic communities’ get and give strength to the new discursive and practical field. A scholar of the workings of international networks described the relevance of these occasions: In general, these conferences remain low-status events from international lawyers’ point of view owing to the ‘non-binding’ nature of conference agreements and resolutions. The hope of their proponents, however, is that, as ‘language’ is quoted and repeated from one conference document to the next and as states begin to conform their practices, or at least their discourse, to the norms expressed therein, some of what is agreed upon at global conferences gradually will become rules of ‘customary international law’ . . . [that] the ‘chain’ of conferences and documents will produce a set of practices and norms. (Riles, 2000: 9–10) The ELC’s ‘career’ so far is a very good example of this mechanism; however, rather than mechanistic, it involves constant negotiation and interpretation. Moreover, in this particular European setting, there is a kind of legitimacy exchange between (European) institutions and (locally based but often networked) civil society. At these meetings, I have heard people from different countries and very different backgrounds comment halfjokingly that it is much easier for each of them to be received by a politician when they are visiting another country, possibly in the framework of a European project, than to speak directly to their local representatives: ‘we need to get experts from outside [our own country], they get listened to because they are not just the guy around the corner, they make an impression on politicians’ as an NGO representative at a European meeting put it. This is a possibility that they seemed intent on trying to use strategically, thanks to their networks. Indeed, planning future visits and reciprocal invitations are one of the main activities of the interludes during these meetings, so that a comment I was often offered in informal exchanges when I asked what these meetings, networks and exchanges are really for, people (locals, national administrators as well as NGO representatives) often say they feel their position is strengthened by participating in ELC events and by the ELC in general, especially as it gives them the strength of a shared position across Europe when they return home. Coming back from a Council of Europe hearing or conference – where the importance of the


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setting is underlined by the long, strict, airport-like security access control (‘every time there is one more barrier’ a delegate commented after finally pinning on his personal one-day badge for the COE headquarters) representatives of a small municipality can go to their own assemblies and constituency and make their proposal ‘with our back covered’, going home with ‘validation at European level’. To ‘give local initiatives a European reach’ and to ‘exchange best practices across Europe’ are constantly repeated mantras. Or, as one of the organizers of a transborder workshop between Italy and France said, ‘we reach gentlemen’s agreements. We exchange, compare, and then you go back home with the strength that this has been validated in other countries in Europe. Because we face the same issues and questions in Europe, so we can find answers together. These workshops are an example of collective intelligence.’ This is not only admitted unofficially in conversation, it is also the official objective. At the founding meeting of the ENELC, the network of local authorities in support of the ELC, one of the opening speakers declared that the new body had to be an ‘intelligent receiver’ of what is being done by each member state; it has to create ‘functional interdependencies’, to become more than the sum of its parts. The idea that opening to third countries could be useful was also mentioned: ‘we are all in agreement among us already, so we should look further away from Europe.’ This is not an isolated comment; I heard similar comments in interviews. One interviewee – a young expert working as a consultant for an Italian region within some EU-funded projects – not particularly satisfied with the amount of dialogue within these initiatives and convinced that a certain localism can easily regain ground especially when ‘partners’ are put in competitive situations, suggested that extra-European participants, even just as observers, could be a solution to promote real confrontation and dialogue, as the need to combine more radically different perspectives would be stronger. Another interviewee, a Swiss architect involved from the beginning with the experts drafting the ELC, commented that Europe or identity or globalization were not really the focus of discussion, because it was implicitly understood that that was their common denominator: ‘[we did discuss] identity a bit, but mainly in thinking of the ideal of Europe. It was not necessary [to discuss] Europe; each of us was European.’ This is why it may be difficult to find ‘Europe’ in meetings and projects if one looks for a direct thematization of what Europe is, or what a European landscape is, or even how to promote it, and the like. Generally, the object of such direct attention is the local level (how to protect and promote the specificity of the Welsh landscape, for instance; how

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to stimulate a sense of place in a big city’s suburbs; how in a locality public parks and allotments can favour participation and social integration, and so on). But the fact that experiences of this kind across Europe are confronted, criticized and exchanged means that it is through this technical Europeanization that Europe becomes an important aspect of the relevant new frame, no matter how ‘local’ the contents are. In the words of one expert with experience on a couple of European projects on landscape, commenting on the role of ‘European themes’, within these initiatives: I think that the European themes emerge in practice, although implicitly, from the confrontation among countries and the effort to find a shared working mode. This step in the process has been very difficult in both projects I have participated in and it is to be considered one of the results obtained. What emerges at the end of the work, not when one is actually doing it, and thus in the final publications and concluding meetings, is the effort of searching for an image of European identity, physical (the confrontation between different territories) but also disciplinary (use of work methodologies simplified so as to become common and shared). This is interesting because, whilst she thinks that the ELC is ‘revolutionary’, she adds that national policies do not always respect its ‘spirit’; however, ‘with these experiences within European projects I realized that actually in each country there has long been an implicit work on the principles that the Convention has made explicit’. So these initiatives, whilst they remain quite experimental and limited, are not only significant in themselves, but show explicitly Europeanization which is, implicitly, taking place at a much more general level. This can be substantiated further by considering the words of a COE official who has followed the ELC from the beginning. During a workshop on landscape, he made a distinction between the concept of landscape or landscape as an asset, and particular, actual landscapes, replying as follows to a question on how landscape is connected to European identity (I have heard him, and others, give a similar explanation on other occasions): European identity is linked to the concept of Landscape (with a capital L), and not to specific landscapes (in the plural), for the time being. For the time being there is no memory, no common experience which can contribute to a common identity; it is impossible to build


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European identity on that, but it is possible on Landscape, Landscape (with a capital L) as an asset. There is a widespread social demand for landscape. Of course when one refers to specific landscapes then it is local identity in connection to landscapes. So, the idea of landscape is European, and landscapes are many and local. This also means that the European idea of Landscape is that, in its very definition, landscape implies diversity, and a sense of belonging to this diversity. Not an appropriation of any specific content, but, if anything, of a peculiar attitude towards landscape made of a ‘social demand’ for the protection of diversity as richness. Indeed, even from my own observations at such working and public meetings I could see that, during the speeches themselves as well as in informal ‘back-stage’ conversations, ‘Europe’ is hardly an issue as such, but in the opening and closing speeches it is always invoked, as it is always connected to diversity, with its positive connotation of ‘richness’, so that Europe is almost always brought back to the ‘local’ level. It is also interesting to note that whilst these events are normally open to COE members alone (others can participate as observers), attendance by NGOs and sometimes local governments from countries that have not ratified or even signed the ELC is quite common (Germany and Austria, for example). The idea that these network and collaboration activities – especially an institutional one such as the ENELC – should ‘lobby’ for more countries to sign the ELC is sometimes explicitly mentioned, notably with respect to EU countries as this would also help the cause of those who want the EU to pay more attention to landscape, and finally itself join the ELC. Europe also emerges in playful comments, as a representative of Catalonia joked about his being German: ‘this is Europe, diversity’. Often, the COE and EU are confused or conflated, and indeed it is clear that many see the involvement with the COE as a kind of springboard or training to get access to the EU (and its funds). As mentioned, it is often with the support of EU funds that experimentation could get off the ground. A landscape concern (or ‘priority’) has been integrated in a variety of EU programmes, particularly within Interreg, the main implementation laboratory for the ESDP, but also programmes in culture (Culture), environment (Life), tangentially in research grants, and so on. So, Europe provides legitimacy and funds, but stays, thematically, in the background. To complete the picture we can try to see how these two levels interact, what is really at stake for the people involved and how being pursued in this Europeanized way affects it.

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6.2 The unity of landscape as the experience of diversity The position vis-à-vis the ELC obviously varies significantly according to how it fits within the consolidated approach in any given context (national, disciplinary or other). For example, some, especially architects and planners, and generally those acting as consultants for public bodies, say that following the ELC emphasis on forms of public consultation and participation has increased; however, this seems to apply more to people coming from countries that admittedly have so far done little in that direction, such as Italy, whilst in others, like the UK, experts and government officials tend to say that this emphasis on participation already existed and was just further confirmed and legitimated by the ELC. Still, from whatever position, all seem to see the ELC in particular as important for those issues that still require debate and research, because those are particularly favoured by international exchanges and find little space in more routine, established policies. For instance, the relationship between identity, landscape and innovation is often debated at ELC-related events because, I was told, as no one can claim to have ‘solved’ it, it is an open problem that calls for dialogue. Many comments suggest that the spaces created by the ELC do not replicate what already exists at the local or national level, but allow a ‘breadth’ otherwise restricted by more everyday concerns. This may reveal a common pattern, especially in cultural policies but not only there, as European institutions have to find a foothold in places not yet dominated by the older, more powerful national institutions, so they seem to be often leading the way in experimental, new sectors, which also need extra funding not generally available at ‘lower’ levels. Also from a legal point of view, given the so-called subsidiarity principle, they have to focus on multilateral co-operation so as not to intervene in fields that, according to subsidiarity, can be dealt with more efficiently at the local level. This means that a synergy connecting European organizations, innovation and co-operation is established, and Europe can profit from the positive connotation that the last two have in our current public culture. This emerges clearly in the words of the director of the Landscape Office of the Italian region Emilia-Romagna who has followed the development of the ELC since its inception; speaking of the integration between different policies that the ELC supports, he claimed: I do believe that this is an unavoidable passage; we see it on a daily basis. I mean, if we want to act on landscape we have to work towards


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integration [of policies], and this we are doing by implementing the philosophy of the ELC, because our new action on landscape today is derived from the ELC, that is . . . this idea to spread the policy of landscape as quality in the different sectors. From the preparatory works it is clear that the ELC emerged from the deep transformation in the rural landscape, and it has been elaborated from below, from the local governments . . . . These Conventions, these new laws obviously produce a cultural evolution, also among the experts. The symbolic, as well as practical, relevance of the ELC emerges in the very expression ‘implementing the philosophy of the ELC’. The integration of sectors is one of the ‘new’ ideas promoted by the ELC. The ELC is seen above all as another opportunity and a new rhetorical instrument to be used within local debates and internal struggles for agency. The ELC’s origin ‘from below’ and its rhetoric of European identity as a result of diversity are therefore often stressed. Following the ELC, the policy of landscape is European and thus common at the level of some framework principles and methodologies, but does not go as far as producing a common, comprehensive approach. As in so many, if not all, European documents, in the title European Landscape Convention, ‘European’ qualifies convention, not landscape. This, of course, leaves open the problem of what is actually shared rather than resolving it. The solution is again a formal and practical one, promoting a similarly formal and practical Europeanization. This formal solution lies in that, as official documents, academic texts and the words of involved experts confirm, the ELC, in this early phase, is above all about exchanging expertise and creating networks at the European level, so that landscape becomes a common concern, however diverse definitions and traditions might be and remain. Or, as one of the experts participating at the drafting and in later initiatives summed up: Without doubt, the important thing in this convention is the confrontation, first of all contact, then confrontation among different ways or different countries so that bit by bit there is a mutual change. On the one hand a coming closer, between different positions and cultures, on the other an enrichment of the different cultures. This is confirmed when we take a closer look at some examples of ‘implementation’ of the ELC as they are made possible thanks to the funding programmes of the EU. Let us consider one of the first projects to go through, European Pathways to the Cultural Landscape, a three-year

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project (2001–3) funded by the EU Programme Culture 2000. This is a network of twelve partners from ten European countries (not all of which had ratified the ELC at the time), comprising local institutions such as museums and parks, but also national bodies, governmental and otherwise, including research institutions. As we read in the project’s documents, one of the aims is precisely to make the network and partnership permanent through specific initiatives; in summary, it is the creation of a common forum for discussion and co-operation with regard to landscape, in particular through meetings, staff exchanges and shared projects. The specific objectives are the understanding of cultural landscapes, marginal landscape in particular. In the final report, entitled Pathways to Europe’s Landscape, the ELC is explicitly recalled, together with a claim that: ‘we believe that landscape is a central part of the European common heritage and culture, and that it “belongs” in a very real sense to all citizens of Europe’ (Clark et al., 2003, n.p.). This common and ‘distinctly European’ character is then explained: Our regions are all very different: from mountain to marsh, from the Atlantic to the Baltic, from forest to farmland. Yet we have found that this variety (and the even richer diversity of our cultures, languages and food, or ‘taste-scapes’) is matched by an equally rich common heritage that unites our landscapes and makes them very recognisably and distinctively European. We discovered that this combination of diversity and unity was a powerful force for increased mutual understanding, respect and friendship, just as too was our exchange of experience and expertise. We firmly believe that the landscape can be a strong and vital part of European unity, and we think that our project . . . is a symbol of European partnership and shared culture. (ibid.) Asked to elaborate this theme of identity further, one of the creators of this project replied during interview: Landscape is the place where people live, therefore by definition it is linked to identity. But identity has become more complicated than in the past, due to the greater mobility of people. Identity therefore is not as simple as it used to be (or at least was thought to be) only one or two generations ago. It is not any longer sufficiently described with terms like ‘Heimat’, as it used to be in the past in Germany. It


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has become more complicated and multi layered. But a sense of identity is crucial for the sustainable management of landscapes . . . . The European aspect to me is a necessary anchor point within globalization, building a Europe which has not only common economic interests but a common cultural, social and political framework. Europe in all its diversity nevertheless has a relatively well defined geographical outline and more important common historic and cultural denominators. These are reflected in the landscape, which is a result of human influence and therefore a cultural entity which cannot be separated from its history and cultural background . . . [T]he projects and their European integration help to strengthen the sense of identity, ownership and pride in the people living in the landscapes. First of all this is the sense of identity on a very local and regional level, but to some extent even a European identity is formed through the pride people take in the European interest stated in their landscape. The point is thus not whether the Europeanist rhetoric is used instrumentally, but the fact that, as well as serving as a lobbying instrument, the new language of landscape promoted at the European level is, to use the revealing words of the interviewee again, ‘a platform to meet like-minded people’:1 landscapes are many and different, but it is in an attitude to them and towards diversity as a constitutive part of them that one can perceive a common element. This can be referred to as an element of identity, which does not refer to any essence of specific landscapes (or identities), that are local, but to relations of recognition between individuals, territories and institutions. Similar themes emerge and are specified in another example, the Landscape Opportunities for Territorial Organization (LOTO). This too was a three-year project (2003–5) funded by the EU initiative Interreg III B and involving mainly regional governments from several countries in Europe. This is interesting because Interreg is aimed at territorial development, is financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and is, allegedly, designed to ‘strengthen economic and social cohesion’. It does so by charting a map of Europe that delineates specific areas, thus promoting the formation of large groups of European regions, which at the same time transcend the national context and valorize specific local features. Interreg III is a territorial rather than sectoral programme, based on the strategic relevance given to natural and cultural heritage for territorial development, as expressed in the European Spatial Development Perspective (Potsdam 1999). For instance in the

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Central Adriatic Danubian South-Eastern European Space (CADSES), there is a priority aimed at ‘Protecting and developing landscape’.2 It is in this framework that LOTO is being carried out. The project provides this self-presentation: As emphasized by the ESDP and the European Landscape Convention, the different landscape characterization of the territories is a resource to safeguard . . . . The project intends to provide tools that govern the evolution of the landscape through the knowledge of the dynamics of transformation, intending the landscape itself as a reference framework for any project of an accurate and territorial scale . . . . So, we propose identifying a method of interpreting the landscape that could be a shared operative reference to guide and verify the territorial transformation choices. But again, it is in the words of one of the involved individuals that we see the real expected and desired outcome of the project; that is, networking itself: LOTO has been conceived to start experimenting the implementation of the ELC at the level of some regional experiences. Especially through the construction of a methodology for interpreting the landscape that can support planning and project-making. The different partners have chosen different areas of investigation and, as far as we are concerned we have addressed the issue of valorization . . . . The idea is to exchange different visions with the European partners. As I said, the experiences at European level are the most diverse, there are countries that participate in LOTO that have never dealt with the management of landscape, I’m thinking here of Romania, or instead that do it in a particular way, such as the University of Munich, that deals with landscape in terms of landscape ecology. Because another problem with landscape is multiplicity, and thus each discipline tends to appropriate it and develop it according to a certain vision. With LOTO we wanted to contribute to the reflection with regard to which activities should be tried out, activities that would not be confined to planning and regulation. We think this is one of the elements that have to become key in the new policies of landscape. In this type of project the European rhetoric of the ‘construction of a common European space’ is realized de facto, although that space


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acquires its legitimization only by allowing diversity. On the other hand, each specific, diverse instance finds a place there only if it accepts being one among many, that is, if it accepts the form of ‘unity in diversity’. The scenery of European landscape policies is thus characterized by a Europeanization that carries at the same time a common form and diversified local contents. This does not mean or imply uncritically accepting the EU’s own rhetoric which makes everyone a ‘partner’, denying power struggles and differentials of forces, but it does point out the windows of opportunity that are open to different subjects, the fact that these become one more instruments in people’s cultural repertoire. The fact that initiatives often find both their means and objective in networking is obviously even clearer at the periodical meetings of the networks themselves. I participated at the founding meetings of the three main networks surrounding the ELC (see Figure 6.1), which have already been mentioned in passing: ENELC, Uniscape and Civilscape, regrouping respectively local and regional authorities,

ENELC

ELC Secretariat at the Council of Europe

UNISCAPE

CIVILSCAPE

Governmental implementation in member states Meetings of contracting parties

Figure 6.1

CDPATEP

The ELC in its ‘field’

Note: CDPATEP stands for the COE’s Steering Committee for Cultural Heritage and Landscape. Source: adapted after Bas Pedroli, unpublished, courtesy of the author.

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universities and NGOs that want to support and promote the ELC and that see themselves mainly as having political, research and lobbying tasks respectively, according to the nature of their founding members. Of the three, ENELC is the oldest and the one that struggled most to come into existence, the other two having an easier start possibly thanks to having their way paved by the first. The idea that eventually produced the ENELC had been around since shortly after the ELC signature, and it was originally thought that it should be an Observatory on the Implementation of the European Landscape Convention, with a view to providing for co-ordination, assistance and technical and scientific support for the authorities (especially local and regional) in implementing their specific institutional responsibilities as regards the landscape, and eventually to become a centre for in-depth research, link-up and interaction for territorial authority departments responsible for landscapes. It faced some opposition, as an informant that attended many preparatory meetings reported, because to many, and in particular to representatives of those countries where the very concept of landscape for public policy is a novelty, this appeared to be a premature move. After much negotiation, what eventually was created in March 2007 at a general assembly at the COE’s headquarters in Strasbourg was a more specifically targeted European Network of Local and Regional Authorities for the Implementation of the European Landscape Convention, in short ENELC. That also left the space for the other two networks to follow suit not long after, Uniscape being established in January 2008 and Civilscape a month later, both at meetings held in what in the meantime had become the official ‘home’ of the ENELC, the majestic, if currently a little dilapidated, Medici Villa near Florence, provided by the Region of Tuscany, and that is now the common headquarters of the three organizations (see Figure 6.2). Of course, at founding meetings issues tend to be mainly of an institutional nature. A common issue on the agenda is the international and interdisciplinary scope in the organization’s structure. Informally, some might lament that a ‘logic of national appropriation’ seems to prevail when deciding institutional roles, especially the leading ones of president, board member, and so on. Most, however, also recognize that an effort to reach representativeness is positive, which is how officially this is presented, as an effort to have an equal representation of organizations from all ‘areas’ of Europe (north, south, east, west) – sometimes with the same preoccupation for types of organizations (for instance, types of NGOs, levels of local government) and gender issues, especially when selecting ‘board’ members, a president, secretary and the like. These are issues on which hours are spent at meetings: what, who


Figure 6.2

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Civilscape founding meeting, at Villa Careggi, Florence

Source: courtesy of Civilscape (the author is the first woman on the right).

and for how long posts are held, as well as on the exact formulation of key articles in the statutes. Normally, some people propose specifications of a first quite general, already circulated, draft; then, after some discussion, during which different approaches and linguistic nuances emerge highlighting problems on the new, more specific proposals, the earlier version is returned to, possibly making it even more general and abstract in trying to accommodate the different (disciplinary, national and so on) approaches. This is normally achieved when somebody suggests that the guiding rationale should be as faithful as possible to the ELC itself, which is already the agreed result of the same type of discussions. For instance, at the Uniscape meeting, the importance of sticking to the three ELC terms ‘protection, management and planning’ of the landscape is underlined, precisely because their translation is not always straightforward in all languages and these are the terms on which there is European agreement to build on. What may appear as empty rhetoric from outside is actually the result of a process whereby new shared understandings are painstakingly but steadily emerging. The first step is to share a common ‘medium’: at a local meeting where a network of Italian landscape observatories and eco-museums was discussing the

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rationale for joining Civilscape, just before some members were about to travel to the Netherlands for one of the preliminary meetings, this was explained with a telling metaphor: ‘To confront experiences at European level, this is key: we have to make sure we are all using the same USB port, it is in this sense that we have to harmonize.’ In general, whatever the metaphor and however explicit it is, the development of a common language and infrastructure remains the leitmotiv. Also, from the point of view of local NGOs, once they enter this European space, the ELC generates ‘expectations and an acceleration’, as it can be used as a tool in discussion with local authorities, as a basis on which shared understanding can be expected and accelerates decision-making. Although single initiatives tend to remain very local in focus, and reaching a common language always has to face Europe’s multilingualism, this practical working together also creates a sense of common belonging. As the representative of the network of Landscape Observatories commented on his still limited participation in European events during the interview, in these contexts differences emerge when it comes to ‘forms of operational activities’ in relation to different ‘social rules of the represented communities’; however, from the beginning it is also ‘very strong the sense of commonality among “militants” of the same cause, and the fact that we all share in this text – the ELC – in which we recognize ourselves has a very high aggregational potential’.

6.3 Towards a new cultural and spatial logic As we have seen, the link between landscape and identity is the crux of the matter, because it is both the very rationale that justifies the ELC and a ‘problem’ no one in the field has solved yet, by their own admission. And it is indeed as a problem, or at least as an issue, that identity and identity-related questions come up in official and unofficial discourse alike, which explains a certain detached, self-conscious and reflexive attitude to identity in general, and European identity in particular, a feature that most of my interviewees shared. As the next extract from the interview with a UK academic in the field of landscape architecture shows: I am not sure that [a European identity] exists very consciously in most people’s minds. However, it is probably subconsciously there as a result of familiar landscape scenes – people quickly recognize the cathedrals, castles, vineyards etc. of Europe, and subconsciously realize that Europe has many internal similarities, and it is different from


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China, America, etc. In the future, I think there will be a stronger influence of ‘dark heritage’ – e.g. Europe has been strongly involved in the slave trade, holocaust, etc., as well as war and colonialism more generally. The fact that we all learn about this heritage is important to our sense of collective history and responsibility, and new roles for Europe in the world. Indeed, most of my interviewees, although from diverse backgrounds, had quite high cultural capital and were familiar with (which sometimes meant critical of) the vocabulary of identity, and sometimes also with its use by European institutions. So in reply to my questions (which in an effort to be non-leading could be quite general) they tended immediately to add specifications and qualification, especially when I asked for comments on the official declaration of identity found in the ELC and the like. Commenting on these, another interviewee, an Italian architect, replied, I think [these declarations] are true as long as one thinks of identity as dynamic and non static . . . . Underlying that identity is the result of a process of construction, it does not exist in itself, it needs to be created, and nourished by recognition, by sharing histories and memories, by developing new allegiances. Only having read this we can understand the answer the same interviewee gave to the direct question ‘Do you think a European identity exists?’: ‘it does not exist in itself. It should be the fruit of a process, of a creative work that would give to identity a syncretic valence’. In a survey this interviewee might have simply said ‘no’, but the sense of her answer is rather more complex, as it implies a reflection on identity in general, and European identity in particular, existing only as relational, relative and dynamic. Of course, this does not mean having a clear definition of European identity; on the contrary, many still recur to the image of a ‘puzzle’ or mosaic, ‘the juxtaposition of different tesserae that try and create an image’, was the metaphor also offered by this interviewee. From France, another expert involved in numerous European projects and networks over many years, further developed this common trope of the European mosaic: European identity is difficult, because already I think one talks more of a Europe of regions, in the sense that it is a mosaic, with everybody having their identity, that one should absolutely not try to erase,

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rather a promotion of regional and local identities at the expense of national identity, that’s Europe, we all agree. Nationalisms are loosing ground, and landscape is typically an object that puts at the forefront local, regional identity . . . . And that mosaic of regional and local identity is going to be recomposed more at the level of Europe than nation. Concretely, for those who have had the possibility of participating in a project it means a process of learning common methods. This is a metaphor that is in line with most visual representations of European landscape(s) that come out of the vast number of meetings and project documents I have considered. Almost without fail, these have on their covers and official representation a patchwork-like image, which some may indeed call a mosaic, but whose peculiarity is that here it is single parts, rather than the whole image, that ‘makes sense’; singularities are not sacrificed for the sake of the whole. For the overall image to make sense without annulling its components what is needed seems to be a substratum of common experiences, stimulating a similar gaze. This is because, in the words of one of my interviewees, it is lived experience, currently in an embryonic state, that has a key role in identity-building, as it shapes perception and thus, ultimately, landscapes: I mean, the similarity among systems and geographical areas (with the same climate, with a similar landscape, the same vegetation and common architectural forms) is not enough to feel part of a certain place because the historical element is missing, the lived experience. In this sense, I think that European identity is in construction; that is, through the complex system of activities that since tenfifteen years have been started – with the opening of borders, the Euro, Erasmus and Leonardo programmes, projects of international co-operation like Interreg or Medocc, the diffusion of tourism and the multiplication of work opportunities abroad – the European identity of citizens is increasingly strong and shared. This, I think, starting from common geographical systems is the first step to really build a European identity. In other terms, in geographical contexts that already have common elements (for instance, the Mediterranean), it is then common experience that generates identity. Like identity, it is landscape itself that is (as we have seen at the beginning of this chapter) represented as addressing an attitude, based on


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experience, rather than a substance, based on objective, immutable elements. This attitude is only partly related to physical contiguity, but includes, as more than one of my interviewees pointed out, landscapes that we have only visited, ‘landscapes where friends live and I envisage them in their place; even . . . landscapes I’ve only seen on TV or film, which is particularly interesting because these are global landscapes of the mind shaped by modern media which are growing in importance’. All this is seen as relevant to identity, which as a result is neither local nor global. As a perceptual entity, local landscape is affected by global landscapes as they are experienced through travel or media: flows and places are not so separated, neither along status or power lines nor physically. In fact, this is not, in the words of my interviewees, a matter of elite vs. the people, a typical critique of European identity. Many of them stressed the importance of travel, even through media, in order to internalize new landscapes, and how this is a factor of identity as it is a source of narrative and visual imaginary, echoing and providing more sustaining evidence for recent theories of ordinary, ‘aesthetic’ cosmopolitanism (Szerszynski and Urry, 2002, 2006). In the words of an IUCN landscape expert: ‘Millions of people think of themselves as part of Europe, travel around it, work across it – share in its values. And to bring the topic back to landscape, the convention is emphatically not about elites only – indeed the innovative strength of the ELC is that it adopts a people-based view of landscape rather than an elite one.’ In the spatial logic advanced by the ELC, the mixing of landscapes experienced through physical contact and those experienced through media contact, as well as local and European, is not problematic. Positions may vary within it, but here we again reach the limits of the discursive field: there is no talk of authenticity in terms of purity for instance, rather an ideology of hybridity, of which the landscape itself is taken as a symbol. As another interviewee said: ‘The key point is the reference to “as perceived by people” . . . Landscape is part of everyone’s feeling of identity. There are many different ways to “declare” identity. They can range from an entirely internal feeling through to major cultural manifestations.’ At this point, I wanted to challenge this rosy picture which seemed almost to ritually repeat official discourse. I tried the usual critique against non-essentialist, reflexive notions of ‘multiple identity’, such as the one that everybody seemed so keen to espouse. According to this critique identities become weak and dissolve when they are too reflexive or self-consciously open and constructed, because ‘real’ identity needs an Other. On this occasion I thus put leading questions to my informants,

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such as asking whether they did not think that a measure of exclusion is always implied in identity, because what is common is, by definition, delimited by what is not common. Generally, my interviewees refused to take up my lead, as is shown in the sharp retort of one of the fathers of the ELC: Let me disagree with you saying that what is common is by definition delimited by what is not common. That may be an approach . . . that descends from considering landscape as a specific ‘good’, as cultural goods, a notion that we find in the UNESCO Convention on World Heritage (natural and cultural). This necessity of delimitation denotes, I believe, a primacy given to the material world (monuments, for example). Landscape takes place also in the immaterial world, where delimitations are always dangerous and the cause of deformation, or of deviations . . . Indeed, these landscape experts do not seem to feel the need to define European landscapes in contradistinction to non-European ones and, even when I asked explicitly, their answers were generic or, as in the case of the previous quote, clearly against notions of identity based on distinction and exclusion, preferring to focus on internal diversity, on the attitude to that diversity, and the capacity to learn from it. One interviewee, a Dutch scientist, promoter of a European network, did seem inclined to take the risk and give substance to Europe’s specificity by saying that ‘European landscapes are the mirror of European culture. And European culture is definitely different from other cultures’, but he then concluded, very much in unity in diversity style, that ‘special characteristics of the European landscape are – corresponding to the variety in culture – its enormous diversity over a relatively small distance and its high degree of cultivation. Probably, also the fact that part of biodiversity in Europe is dependent on the cultivated landscape, is a characteristic’ (emphasis added). Some, when asked, did mention more substantial elements, both the classic ones (a Christian heritage, the Enlightenment, Romanticism), or more specific ones, linked to landscape (‘temperate climate’, ‘long history of human settlement and migration’, or familiar landscape elements such as castles or vineyards), but that was done almost in passing, always at the same time stressing internal diversity and never as a ‘canon’, something that, according to textbooks on Europe, we should expect in the three roots of Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian and Humanist heritage, but which were never mentioned as such. In most cases the question is


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sidestepped, and the relative and social nature of landscape brought to the fore: Landscapes of the old continent bear the traces of a human presence that is different also from other continents: the unspoilt is limited to very restricted areas . . . . It is misleading to use the register of description and morphology to answer this question [on the characterising features of European landscapes]. The answer that convinces me most is that in Europe there is the following phenomenon: in relation to the physical extension of territory a proportionally higher portion of it is perceived by inhabitants as a ‘common good’. To conclude, if criticizing a lack of a clear Other and ‘unity in diversity’ as a contradiction almost goes without saying in academic analyses, especially those that focus on cultural policies that are particularly premised on this rhetoric (see Shore, 2000; Theiler, 2005), on the basis that this would be a highly abstract, abstruse rhetoric that social actors beyond the Euro-elites (professional Europeans working for the EU and the like) would certainly not be able to integrate and make sense of, my experience in the field was different. I actually had to face many raised eyebrows, often just to be gently reminded that surely lots of scholarly books had been written on it or even, once, that ‘the world is not in black and white’, simply for advancing those critiques that are still so mainstream in issues of European identity. For most if not all the people I spoke to, that landscape is ‘an expression of the diversity of Europe’s shared heritage’ is so obviously ‘not a contradiction at all’, that even asking about it meant enduring the complacent treatment fieldworkers have to be prepared for, as they come from a different discursive field. As one interviewee succinctly put it: ‘No, there is no contradiction. It depends on spatial scale and cultural context. That is part of the beauty of landscape – it is a term that can integrate across spatial scales, cultural contexts and epistemological frameworks.’ Or another one, less categorical but still in the same tone: Aren’t the creation, awareness and maintenance of a sense of identity processes that are both common to overlapping groups and different/unique to individuals in those groups? And both at the same time? There may be a contradiction between pure definitions of what is common and what is individual or different, but in reality we all negotiate our way between the two, and the landscape is certainly the product of both, in terms of its physical form, and the ways in

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which it is perceived and valued. As such, I don’t see a problem with the apparent contradiction. Moreover, most wanted to stress, as we have seen in chapter 5, the nonelitist nature of the ELC, and were persuaded that, if it may still have a limited impact, one possibly confined to certain elites, this is not a permanent situation and this new approach is not per se a prerogative of elites: ‘in the longer term European policy influences will become so pervasive that ordinary people will take-for-granted a lot of common European themes. Farmers, for example, have a very astute understanding of European initiatives, and are ordinary people who are responsible for maintaining most of our landscapes’ as an historian working for English Heritage put it. He was echoed by an independent Swiss expert, who claimed that ‘The important thing is the European construction, that can be made from below, meaning by this the people that recognize themselves in history but also in a common path that can only be of peaceful coexistence and so on and so forth’. In short, in this field, the narrative of European identity provides a discursive solution for situations that would have been seen as contradictory, mainly because they were so in a national, essentialist discourse. This spatial and cultural logic is informed by an open narrative that people hold about themselves but that contains diversity, change and social variation, a narrative that is rarely brought to the fore, but treated as taken for granted, unspoken, common ground.

6.4 Concluding remarks The ELC’s initial stimulus as a reaction to globalization and ‘spaces of flows’ has not generated a barricading-in of a ‘space of places’. Indeed, in the field of emerging European landscape policies we saw how the European space being imagined and inhabited is neither a distant, placeless flow identifiable with globalization, nor an unconnected, reactionary place that can only support ‘local’ meaning and identity. A defensive reaction to globalization was only one among several catalysts, and the long, polyvocal drafting process was dominated precisely by the need to give space to those different voices and approaches: these material conditions correspond (without assuming any direction of causality) to the logic that the final text, and the discursive field as a whole, incarnate. No matter how flimsy and precarious may the ‘communicative miracle’ mentioned at the outset seem in the diverse field of landscape policies, the product of painstaking and continuous


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negotiations. As we have seen, agreement is found on very specific formulations which then each one goes home to fill with substance. This is why the overall result may seem to lack coherence, and indeed actually lack it. However, once again, coherence is not a necessary feature of discourse, as noted, and its lack does not necessarily undermine its efficacy (Hajer, 1995: 42–72). The plurality of meanings does not mean that there is no (shared) understanding. People use the official rhetoric in a rather self-conscious, reflexive way, which both enables and constrains them; each of their idiosyncratic meanings draws significance from its inclusion in the common frame of unity in diversity, a frame that is very significant to actors involved, a shared understanding and commitment. Despite the evident and frustrating vagaries of speeches at meetings, a discursive order is indeed emerging from the apparent disorder or heterogeneity, and European identity as ‘unity in diversity’ is its pivotal element, even if this means that its significance cannot be derived from the official discourse alone. This is something we can accept only if we are prepared to consider as relevant both enabling and constraining effects, as well as the fact that this narrative of Europe is indeed a new tool, but it cannot be just an addition in a field left unchanged, a passive, inert element previous ones can ignore. For it to be meaningful it means it has become a part of the social reality it helps to build, opening up new possibilities of perception, preferences and practices – precisely as landscape experts like to say that you need to start seeing landscapes, and in terms of landscapes, otherwise you cannot understand, you speak another language. It certainly remains to be seen whether actual future policies will live up to the inclusivity of the ELC’s principles. Most of my interviewees are optimistic about this. But for European identity what is even more relevant is that the narrative as such is inclusive, and for that reason it is used by actors, often exceeding the default meaning somehow implied in the official rhetoric per se. This is what we can address when we turn to how that rhetoric is interpreted and used by the actors involved. As was also revealed in the ECOC case study (Part II), the official European (in this case the COE’s and its civil society ramifications) rhetoric may be a superficial celebration of regional or national differences, but within the ambiguity and openness of ‘unity in diversity’, difference in a much broader and deeper range of meaning finds space at the level of interpretation. This presupposes and allows a specific logic governing the definition of what a cultural space or ‘unit’ is. That is, a spatial and cultural logic that avoids binary distinctions and has reconceptualized diversity and change as compatible with unity. What this logic excludes

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is what the previous one required: homogeneity and permanence as a necessity. This does not imply a claim that landscape per se sustains such an approach, it just observes that this is the case here, as landscape becomes the object of European public policy, which is why it is relevant as part of our understanding of Europeanization, and of the available contemporary styles of imagining identities. Here, diversity, change and social articulation (rather than imposed uniformity for the sake of the ‘community’) are narratively maintained, through the notion of landscape. What European identity discourse is doing is displacing binary logics of identity. This narrative of European identity may be quite ambiguous about its content, but that does not make it less readily available. It is there and can be mobilized as a quite flexible tool, it has become part of an increasingly relevant cultural repertoire. It does not have a problem with territorial or other identities, because it does not aspire to exclusivity (the reverse, though, may not be true). It may or may not succeed, which is why Europeanization is interesting in itself and as a test of how to conceive cultures, territories and identities today. On the part of European organizations it certainly is a tactical and reflexive move, but people are indeed both constrained and enabled in different ways by it. The superficial similarity with nationbuilding discourse should not be taken at face value, as all the process of imagination as well as the building material are different. As one of my interviewees summarized, the rhetoric of a European heritage way well be a kind of national heritage writ large, ‘but when you write large you get more space between the lines for other messages’.

Conclusion

Within the current reconceptualization of identities and cultures, Europe’s narrative of unity in diversity is becoming less of a smokescreen and more of an asset. For an increasing number of Europeans, it is not so contradictory or awkward with respect to how they come to terms with the other, equally complex contexts of their everyday experience. The EU, COE and other organizations speaking in the name of Europe are in fact becoming less and less apologetic in using that rhetorical solution, less as a way to accommodate the nations and more as a manoeuvre, maybe just intermediate, towards a new style of imagining a cultural identity. We say ‘intermediate’ because the representation of ‘stable’ identities, with clear boundaries and so on, is difficult to dispose of; perhaps it remains a regulatory ideal all identities tend towards, even if we know that, actually, crisis and flux are the norm rather than the exception. The specificity of Europe, on which we should focus more attention, is the degree of explicitness and ‘publicness’ of this, so that its rituals and myths appear as such. For some this evidence of the constructed character of European narratives is enough to destroy them, or at least diminish their relevance for identity. However, this is to a great extent an untested assumption, and a curious one when coming from scholars who claim to adhere to ‘reflexivity’; it is as if they also claimed for themselves (and other ‘elites’) an exclusive ability to (under)stand such revelations. The normative comparison with the nation still plays a role: for a national identity to be successful it means creating a strong feeling of natural belonging, so we tend to measure also European identity against that. But, as it would seem from my case studies, for the latter to be successful it means creating a strong feeling of choice and of having produced, and to keep actively producing that sense of identity. We could say, focusing on the performative character of culture (Alexander, 193

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Giesen and Mast, 2006), that the national one is a performance that needs a naïve public, the European one is, like much contemporary cultural production, a performance for a reflexive public. Thanks also to the interpretation that the European rhetoric allows and requires on the part of ‘local’ or ‘lay’ (for want of better qualifiers) actors, diversity is less and less phrased in terms of diversity among national, bounded cultures, and increasingly as diversity within culture, constitutive of every cultural space. As Kevin Robins recently put it when discussing the reframing of the minority issue in Europe in terms of diversity, this ‘has made it possible to expand mental and imaginative horizons beyond ethnic categorization, to include other kinds of difference (such as gender, age or sexual orientation). It has worked towards the de-ethnicization of difference’ (Robins, 2006: 255). A new configuration is emerging where ‘a new imagination of culture and cultural diversity – of culture as diversity – has become possible’ (ibid.: 270). Perhaps not only possible but necessary if we want to be able to interpret emergent phenomena. In this light, a European cultural space would be neither singular, nor plural; neither about a layer of supranational unity above the nations’ diversity, nor merely about a ‘Europe of the regions’, the alternatives suggested by the comparison with the national model. Rather, it is about a combination of concepts of culture and identity (and place) that neither sacrifices nor celebrates diversity per se, struggling (because it has not totally freed itself from the previous model) to redefine those concepts and focusing on the creation of unity as a project of social construction. A good test for the direction in which a new imagination of Europe might be going – as Robins’ and the views expressed from some of my interviewees that want to extend ‘Europe’ well beyond the reach of official integration in some institutional ensemble point to – seems to lie in how it will deal with ‘new Europeans’, including in that expression those ‘entering’ both via EU enlargement and via migration from the rest of the world. Incidentally, this practical test that the non-essentialist view of identities has to face – especially since the new ‘security first’ approach following the rise in terrorism and ethnic revival characterizing the beginning of the twenty-first century – is particularly salient in, but not unique to, Europe. From the point of view of culture and cultural policies, and from the two case studies presented in this book in particular, Europeanization is actually quite inclusive, not out of any particular nature of Europeanness, but of the complex and often contrasting processes that make it up. At the EU level, cultural programmes have been open to candidate states and in some respects even

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to non-member states almost from the beginning, with an even wider spectrum on the actual cultural contents that can be addressed, provided the rule of co-operation is respected. For its part, the Council of Europe ‘reunited’ Europe well before the EU. Moreover, although notions of culture extrapolated from official texts may still imply bounded, selfsufficient ‘cultures’, in practice attempts to re-ethnicize culture, to use it for exclusivist, ‘purist’ purposes have been kept at bay (for instance, in the COE national policy studies programme; see Dragicevic, Sesic and Dragojevic, 2006). If there are still disparities in the actual use of these programmes this seems to have structural, practical reasons rather than ‘cultural’ ones (for instance, on the still prevalently Western use of EU funds under the Culture programme; see Inkei, 2004; for a reflection and more cases on ‘European transcultural’ policies, see the collection of studies in Meinhof and Triandafyllidou, 2006). It will remain crucial to keep under observation how European cultural policy will adjust, rhetorically and practically, to a continuously evolving Europe. The shifting role of diversity that has emerged so far can provide a useful interpretive key: we need to keep asking and monitoring whether diversity’s celebration is dependent on its limitation to an innocuous and commoditized plurality of goods and production, or if this also works as the re-entry of cultural diversity in the definition of identity. How Europeans themselves, old and new, translate and transform into practice the rhetoric of unity in diversity is a focal point. So, as much as the rhetoric of cultural unity in diversity may seem, as some critiques have dismissively put it, saccharine and superficial, one based on the idea that cultural diversity in Europe is per se an obstacle to any further development is even more suspicious. Moreover, much is lost if one concentrates exclusively on the critique of official rhetoric. The way in which cultural Europeanization was originally envisaged as a top-down policy process, criticized for elitism and ineffectiveness, misses the transformations taking place, as these contain polyvocal, bottom-up, unofficial processes. Coming from the cognate field of sport as a key element of popular culture (and thus its organization and regulation forming a key part of cultural policies), Maurice Roche has put this in terms of an easily missed ‘creeping Europeanization’: ‘partial and practical forms of “cultural Europeanization” . . . can be said to be occurring. . . . EU policy and European social scientific research needs to be more aware of what can be called the “creeping Europeanization”, “bottom-up” and “unofficial” processes that are involved in the development of consumer culture across Europe’s societies’ (Roche, 2007: 138). This creeping, practical

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Europeanization often goes unnoticed, especially with regard to its relevance for how contexts become meaningful for identities, because it takes subtler forms than those expected. In football – Roche’s focus of research – it is not that we necessarily have to look for a European football team, but we should take note of the European (or global) market of players, the fact that these are no longer nationals (with national teams increasingly recurring to a flexible interpretation of the national eligibility criteria), and the growing importance of European championships possibly presaging a ‘European super-league’. Crises too, financial ones in particular, are increasingly European-wide. It is the football industry that is de facto Europeanized. This has interesting parallels with the results of my case studies. In general, signs may be much more mundane or ‘structural’ than what we expected: when we consider the theme of ‘cultural Europeanization’ and people’s potential collective identity as ‘European’, it would make sense to lower our sights from grandiose and elite-driven ideals and dreams relating to the potential for sharing ‘European values’ through sport or for the development of EU teams competing in international sport. Perhaps a better approach would be to look for less direct and more practical, albeit more complex and ambiguous, forms of popular ‘European awareness’ and Euro-cosmopolitanism, such as those which have been loosed in the field of sports culture and sport-related media across Europe’s societies. (ibid.: 135) Rather than simply existing or not as a cultural monolith, Europeanization has the potential for both positive and negative aspects; whilst it opens up opportunities for communication and exchange, it can also provide rationales for new forms of racism and violence; both need to be given specific attention, to connect them to contemporary dynamics. Instead, we may not see Europeanization because we are looking in the wrong direction for the wrong thing, as Yasemin Soysal has shown by studying the (related) field of education policies, where she uncovered how the unchallenged perceived domination of the national level can be the biased effect of looking only at what the EU does directly and explicitly and overlooking a whole series of activities, actors and their relations, partly stimulated by European organizations but not institutional in themselves. These ‘grassroots’ can profit from increasing spaces of opportunity that, although not necessarily evenly distributed, may help achieve a Europeanization (for example, in terms

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of a common rewriting of history textbooks) that is beyond the EU’s (and nation-states’) reach. My case studies have encountered a very similar emergent, taken-for-granted and thus unchallenged Europeanization (Soysal, 2002). Drawing on the notion of ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig, 1995), Soysal describes this as the ‘banalization of Europe’ to signify that this tacitness does not stand for irrelevance, but instead for Europe’s becoming routine, part of everyday life, ‘a social fact’ (see also Cram, 2001). However, there is a key difference between banal nationalism and banal Europeanism. If banal nationalism is very much based on forgetting difference and complexity, so that its stereotypical identity as reiterated in public discourse stresses homogeneity, banal Europeanism’s public discourse has a different narrativization that stresses ‘unity in diversity’. Europe and the nation are imagined, naturalized and made banal differently, the first stressing (or imposing) homogeneity, commonality and single, exclusive identification, the second – partly as a reaction and because the first option is already taken and unavailable – opting for an opposite solution that claims to be based on plurality, diversity and multiple allegiances. This is indeed, as some criticize, simply a claim, mere rhetoric. But it is important to see the difference at the level of this symbolic construction of community, to follow how all this informs practice, as I have tried to do in my two case studies. How does unity in diversity work in practice? How is the ‘communicative miracle’ found in landscape policies performed? How does the increasingly reflexive stance towards ‘culture’, such as that found in the ECOC, impact on practice? These are probing questions that require constant attention more than definitive answers. I can rephrase the argument advanced on the basis of the case studies as articulated in two steps. First, my analysis in a sense parallels that of scholars engaged in an ideology critique of European institutional narratives and who have pointed out how policies are also important in their identity-shaping effects, how they shape reality through discourses and narratives that it is thus important to interpret, unpack and contextualize. In the European context, this has taken increasingly abstract, micropolitical or disciplinary forms, which work best when they remain hidden or implicit, so that they can try to pass into the taken-for-granted, shared understanding. However, there is a second step in my approach. The ideology critique mode overlooks a second aspect of the process of subjectivation, the fact that it is neither totally monolithical – especially in a complex and contested phenomenon such as Europeanization – nor unidirectional: ‘identities’ are the active result of subjects appropriating to some extent and using

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in their own terms narratives and discourses originally ‘imposed’ on them. The more abstract or ‘subtle’ the narrative, the more the control is potentially internalized and pervasive, but also more spaces of resistance are opened. And again, in the European context, the discourses and narratives adopted are increasingly open-ended, inclusive, and so the spaces for interpretation have grown together with the reach of the narrative. The style of imagination is no longer the national one, so that it can easily escape analysis that looks for the signs we are used to in the national context, asking the same questions that were relevant at the national level or of other forms of allegedly strong, all-encompassing, collective identities. In summary, we could say that national identity was about a strong sense of ‘being’, a natural, ascribed identity endowed with specific contents. European identity is more about a sense of ‘becoming’, something nobody is simply by birth, because it is permanently in evolution, drawing from this, and not from specific contents, its specificity. As we have seen in the case studies, this is how ‘unity in diversity’ translates in practice: diversity is encouraged within the European frame as this promotes an approach where no single content can try to impose itself as hegemonic. In turn, the European frame too is only accepted as long as it reflexively applies this inclusivity to itself, that is on the condition that it does not impose a specific, exclusive and essentialist content. Whether this deserves or not to be called a (cultural) identity depends, obviously, on what our expectations are. As the material presented in this book shows, the European ‘case’ is but an example of wider challenges that previously consolidated models of cultural identity are facing today. It suggests that we explore further the idea that cultural identity does not necessarily require unity and specificity, but rather a context favourable for the expression of specificities. This is of course not implied in the formula ‘unity in diversity’ itself. The latter can be interpreted – indeed, it mostly is – in its more obvious sense, as referring to what has become the platitude of ‘multiple identities’, with the European as just another option among others. In this interpretation, identities are multiple in the sense that many are available, but taken singly these are still well bounded, persistent and unitary. Therefore, it follows that the European one should be like that to merit the title. But identities can be multiple in another sense, shifting, so to speak, multiplicity from outside to inside. In this view, European identity is not one among many, but rather there are many of them, it is in itself multiple. My case studies point to this second option, which has

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important implications. It suggests that there cannot be a further cultural ‘level’ where unity can be found. Multiplicity is what we have, unity may well be a regulatory idea that the term identity somehow implies but in which, as we are increasingly conscious of, it is dangerous to look for an essence of identity itself.


Notes Introduction 1. In an expanding literature, see, as an early contribution going beyond institutional integration, Borneman and Fowler (1997). More recently, see Delanty and Rumford (2005) and Rumford (2009); for a political science perspective (Radaelli, 2004) and for a snapshot focusing on the cultural dimension, see Scott, Bee and Scartezzini (2008). 2. The origin of modern cultural policy in Europe has been set sometimes in a very restrictive sense, when the first Minister of Culture was named in France in 1959. However, definitions going beyond policy analysis tend to see its emergence much earlier, during the formation of the modern state, and in particular in post-revolutionary France, when the state took on the task of modelling the proper citizen (Lewis and Miller, 2003). Many authors go further, following Michel Foucault’s governmentality approach: it is the very concept of culture in the modern sense that developed at the same time as the concept of police (the etymological root of policy), as the basis of the new relationship between the political institution and individuals, now monitored and shaped, ‘from the cradle to the grave’ (see e.g. Bennett, 1992; Barnett, 2001; both following Foucault, 1991). We can add that individualization and the need for cultural guidance, provided by collective and institutional breeding, emerged in parallel (Bauman, 1996: 19) and their combination crystallized in the imagined community of the nation (Anderson, 1983). 3. In the expression ‘European cultural identity’, the complexity of each of its three components is elevated by that of the other two. This is what chapter 1 investigates in some detail, even if I have tried to avoid becoming enmeshed in a mere definitional, normative discussion of how we should conceive of identity, culture and Europe. Rather, I have tried to address, critically, how conceptions emerged – academically, officially and in the wider public debate – and what people do with those constructs that become dominant in certain context and can thus be mobilized as discursive and practical resources, as well as being constitutive elements of the field in which they move. When I say ‘critical’, I mean critical distance rather than a specific intention to ‘demystify’ or dismantle ideological constructions. Starting from the point of view that, sociologically, it only makes sense to talk of identities as social and cultural constructs anyway, I see my task mainly as interpretive, to understand how certain constructions and not others become meaningful for people, for their self-understanding and agency. 4. For an historical account of shifting keywords in the process of Europeanization, see Stråth (2002). For an overview of the extent to which we can talk of a ‘European society’ in the singular, including a reflection on social identities, see Outhwaite (2008). Subsequent sociological attempts at defining 201

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identity in relation to Europe are found (among others) in Schlesinger (1992), Kohli (2000), Habermas (2001), Delanty (2005), Kantner (2006), Wagner (2008) and Eder (2009). 5. Governmentality approaches to cultural policies (see note 1 above) that focus on the standardization of social conduct and institutional formation of selfidentity are key for my perspective, but they are limited in that they tend to overlook that the production of subjectivity is not a one-way process and become deterministic (notwithstanding the fact that their first source of inspiration, Foucault, stressed, at least in theory, both constraining and enabling effects, as when there is ‘power’ there is also ‘resistance’). This is why the ideology critique that informs the governmentality approach is only a partial account and, ultimately, also flawed by methodological nationalism, as Jim McGuigan has pointed out in his proposal to rethink cultural policy – although without directly employing the expression: ‘[a]lthough Foucauldianism tends to play down the politics of actual government it is, nevertheless, in practice curiously constrained by the nation-state framework of governmentality, which becomes particularly problematic for addressing globalization. In effect, the Foucauldian approach to cultural policy tends to repeat the elementary sociological fallacy of treating society as a nation-state’ (McGuigan, 2004: 16). 6. For simplicity, I decided to avoid giving names of interviewees as a general rule, although the inclusion of some of their personal data (role, nationality and the like) may mean they are an easy guess, especially for those who are familiar with the ECOC or the ELC. It is interesting to note that some of my interviewees, in both case studies, were themselves European professional migrants, working outside their country of origin (or maybe their parents’); perhaps a further indication of how Europeanized some milieus can be.

1 Imagined Europe: narratives of European cultural identity 1. Indeed, the expression ‘European institutions’ refers to the plurality of EU bodies (European Commission, European Parliament, European Council of Ministers, European Court of Justice, European Committee of the Regions, and so on), and does not include the Council of Europe (COE), which is a totally separate organization. Here I have followed this convention, using the expression ‘European organizations’ when referring to both the EU and COE. 2. European integration is the subject of many volumes, mainly from the perspectives of historical and political science; for good general introductions, see Dinan (2005), McCormick (2005), Cini (2006), Nugent (2006); for a focus on politics and policies, see Hix (2005) and Wallace, Wallace and Pollock (2005). 3. Among the most quoted and relevant works, see Hay (1957), Curcio (1958), de Rougemont (1961), Foerster (1963), Voyenne (1964), Duroselle (1965). Of course, histories of Europe continue to be written, and carry on, albeit from a variety of approaches, what these classic studies started. For encompassing overviews, see the bestseller Davies (1996) or Pagden (2002); for an

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analysis of cyclical forms of European integration from medieval Christianity through to intellectual integration in the Enlightenment and contemporary institutions, see Pomian (1990); for a meta-history of the histories of Europe, see Verga (2004). For instance, in a series of new and still open issues regarding European identity, Kaelble (1998) individuates the distinctive feature of contemporary studies. This concern for identity is found across different methodological approaches and three main perspectives: one viewing Europe in terms of unity and continuity (this was also the main approach of classic studies); a second emphasizing its national, regional, religious (and so on) plurality; the third concentrating more exclusively on the process of integration. My own classification (see section 1.2) partly overlaps with Kaelble’s, in particular the first two types. However, Kaelble’s third type is, in my opinion, best characterized as the attempt to find a synthesis out of the critiques of both the other two, many of which concentrate on the process of integration, but not only this, and not as a predominant characterizing feature. Political identities are premised on ideas regarding common selfunderstandings of individuals as culturally formed by their affiliation (mostly measured against the national example), so that the problem of cultural identity is not really ruled out, but just overlooked. For this reason in my schematization (section 1.2) I prefer not to draw the distinction between political and cultural within identity, but rather to consider the correlation between (cultural) identity and (political) theories and practices of integration. There are some important exceptions, which have been taken into account here: in particular, Delanty and Rumford (2005); Eder and Spohn (2005); Ichijo and Spohn (2005). However, it is interesting to note that the first one provides a model within an exclusively theoretical approach, the other two propose a typology in introducing collections of empirical investigations, none of which, however, makes use of the classifications advanced in the general introduction (Bryant, 2006). The dichotomy between federalism and neofunctionalism is a reduction of complexity. Nonetheless, it is useful here as it directly recalls a more fundamental level worth considering, that is, ideas of what Europe is, of what Europeans share and thus of what they can be motivated by in the development of allegiances. However, in proposing this scheme we should also acknowledge that federalism and neofunctionalism do not always operate on the same level. Neofunctionalism – a term legitimated by use in European Studies but which is often confusing in sociology – is a theory of integration, federalism a form of integration as well as a political ideal, which has been shared by many neofunctionalists, and some of the ‘founding fathers of Europe’ among them. For detailed analysis of several approaches to European integration, see Nugent (2006). Other, less conventional canons or additions can also be traced. For instance, Gimbutas’s theory (1991) of a pre-Indo-European matriarchal civilization as a common cultural root can be interpreted in this light. For an example of a search for Europeanness in the depths of the archaelogical past, see DiazAndreu (1996).

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9. These critiques are sometimes misplaced, as is Appadurai’s definition of Weber as a primordialist (Appadurai, 1996: 14, 145; see Bodemann, 2005 for a critique). However, the context just delineated should help us understand the conditions that led to such a simplistic reading of Weber, if not of sociology in general: a reaction to a mainstream vision (itself a simplification of classic themes) instrumental to, if not openly supporting, the idea of European superiority. 10. Thereby running up against critiques of imposing something typically European as universal. This is a recent approach within the post-colonial, subaltern studies, exemplified by the well-known critique of Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000) against the generalization of Europe’s indispensable but partial categories as if they were exhaustive universals, and his related call to ‘provincialize’ Europe. 11. Here, according to the implicit notion of identity that is held – and in particular whether diversity can or cannot be part of it – the resulting evaluation of European identity can be of two opposite types: it can be seen as an instance of the exit from the national need of homogeneity, or of other, global assaults to cultural specificities. 12. Including the one pointing to the fact that European institutions are hardly the only ones to use it as a solution to accommodate diversity. As Isar remarks: ‘Yet over five decades ago, “unity and diversity” was already the motto of the newly-formed Republic of India’, adding, however, that ‘in this usage [in India], the term merely recognized the empirical plurality of the sub-continental nation’s constituent parts rather than being an overt celebration of its cultural variety; this factual usage is replicated frequently elsewhere in the non-Western world’ (2006: 373). 13. Both the EC/EU and the COE have well-articulated – and prolific – procedures for drafting, circulating and approving a vast amount of ‘documents’. These will be considered in more detail with regard to cultural policies in chapter 2, whereas for a general account of their institutional working one can refer to the equally vast amount of general introductions, not to mention in-house, official, handbooks. 14. The motto was also contained in the Preamble of the proposed Constitutional Treaty of 2004. After its failed ratification, the new Reform Treaty (known as the Lisbon Treaty, and signed in 2007 and still undergoing a long and difficult process of ratification at the time of writing) is even more cautious, in these as other matters. In particular, as far as identity and culture explicitly are concerned, there are no major novelties, conceptual or operative, with respect to already adopted treaties. As for the motto, in the Lisbon Treaty it is downgraded to one of the annexed Declarations by Member States. 15. In 2001–2 a series of major conferences was organized by the COE with a view to producing a new Declaration on European Identity. This, however, is still pending. From the published proceedings it is clear that at this institutional level identity is an increasingly intractable but apparently unavoidable subject, which is still resolved in terms of a ‘shared but multiple identity’ (see also Grillo, 2007). 16. Today, the official rhetoric of the EU and COE on matters of identity and culture appear to converge. Indeed, earlier commentators sometimes anticipated a merging of the two institutions, once the EU

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had overcome its sectoral character to become a proper polity, in the framework of a federal entity having also integrated the security role of NATO (Weisglas, 1990: 125). Differences emerge only on close examination: ‘The [post-liberal] recognition of diversity replaces the older liberal notion of universalistic values which might be capable of loosely defining the basic normative framework of the European Union. In the case of the Council of Europe, which has a strongly human rights focus, the commitment to unity in diversity maintains a certain balance with a commitment to upholding universalistic values within Europe’ (Delanty and Rumford, 2005: 60). 17. The Euro banknotes design, with its abstract bridges and doors, has generated an interesting debate, both a public one at the time of its introduction, and a few scholarly commentaries subsequently. Commentators mostly take it as a further demonstration of Europe’s emptiness and lack of shared symbols and identity (Fishman and Messina, 2006; for a different perspective, see Sassatelli, 2003).

2

European cultural policies

1. Mammarella and Cacace (1999: 95; my translation) report Lang’s ‘confession’ at a conference in Turin in 1996: ‘It was 1982, I was trying to gather a meeting of the member countries’ Culture Ministers, but there was no way: agriculture yes, culture no . . . . So, to be more convincing I quoted Monnet in the conditional. I said: “I think that if he questioned himself today maybe he would start with culture.” Since then, the notion has undoubtedly been attributed to him. I’ve tried to correct it in vain. I apologize.’ 2. The most recent and detailed analyses from a political science perspective are found in Theiler (2005) and Littoz-Monnet (2007); from an anthropological-critical approach the pioneering work of Cris Shore remains a point of reference (Shore, 1993, 2000, 2006; see also McDonald, 1996; Bellier and Wilson, 2000). Other social (rather than strictly political) science approaches, sometimes with a more specific focus on media or education policy, include Shlesinger (1997), Barnett (2001), Banus (2002), Soysal (2002) and Helie (2004). 3. The Treaty of Rome (1957) establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) contains only one marginal reference to culture in Article 36, where in relation to the free movements of goods among member states, a cultural exemption clause for cultural goods is introduced, but only for exceptional cases. Even this marginal disposition, however, was the source of much debate and contrasted lobbying during the GATT negotiations on audiovisual policy, (see Schlesinger, 1997). 4. One should stress, however, that respondents were only given the choice between national and European. A more recent survey which allowed a wider spectrum of agents for a similar question (‘Among the following, who is best placed to launch new initiatives aimed at reinforcing the position of culture and cultural exchanges in Europe?’) revealed a much more diverse situation. National governments (50 per cent) and the EU (44 per cent) still receive the highest percentages, but other actors are also significant: European citizens themselves (37 per cent), regional and local public authorities (25 per cent),

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6.

7.

8. 9.

10.

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Becoming Europeans trust, foundations or NGOs (23 per cent), other/spontaneous (1 per cent) (CEC, 2007b: 55–8). Subsequent Treaties (Treaty of Nice, the failed Constitutional treaty of 2004, as well as the Reform Treaty which substituted it, signed in Lisbon in 2007) introduced no substantial novelties in this field. However, the figure should also consider that the EU has encouraged the use of the more substantial structural funds for cultural projects, so that, according to an official estimate of 2001, the latter give about ¤400 million to ‘culture’ each year (twelve times the annual provision of the framework programme for culture; see Helie, 2004: 67; see also CEC, 2002a). However, within structural funds, objectives are differently legitimated with the effect of ‘putting culture at the service of local development’ (Helie, 2004: 71). More generally, this stands as an example of what has been called the ‘multiple instrumentalities ascribed to culture as a medium for the management of European integration’ (Barnett, 2001: 405). The new Culture programme articulates this in three specific objectives: supporting the transnational mobility of cultural workers; encouraging the transnational circulation of cultural objects; and promoting ‘intercultural dialogue’. The other 10 per cent are devoted to information and diffusion. ‘Culture 2000 projects are extremely diverse (owing to the great scope allowed by the objectives), and because of this a coherent set (or sets) of interrelated projects have not been developed which would give the programme critical impact or momentum’ (Ecotec, 2006: viii). The particular policy style is further consolidated by this communication, which proposes for culture what has been described as a flexible, soft law mechanism, used in other fields of limited EU competence such as education, youth or social affairs. This is the so-called ‘Open Method of Coordination’, a form of intergovernmental co-operation designed to stimulate both member states and civil society participation (and thus legitimization) in the shaping of EU cultural policy strategies and initiatives. It is largely based on an exchange of information and good practice through regular consultation, organized around a series of governmental and non-governmental ‘platforms’ organized and sponsored by the EU, including the major biennial Cultural Forums. Although this might be seen as a reaction to an underlying common critique which claims that the EU cultural budget has generally been handled with a lack of transparency and clarity, this new method could be interpreted as a reaction to this critique, as earlier reactions also involved the appointment of formally independent evaluators of some fashion. However, the NGO sector’s own response seems cautious, defining these new platforms as ‘a self-organising open space, where people were invited to take responsibility for discussing their passion rather than a forum for civil society organisations to contribute their expertise to policy outputs’ (Efah, 2008). As well as having come to share, since the late 1980s, the flag and the anthem (see chapter 1), the COE and the now EU shared premises in Strasbourg: at the beginning of their activities the EC Assemblies met in

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the Council of Europe’s ‘Palace of Europe’, until they were transformed into the elected European Parliament and a separate building was built, also in Strasbourg. More importantly, they have always shared a similar attitude to conflict resolution, with the COE often having the opportunity to experiment before the EC does: notably, they are both based on a dual governmental/parliamentary structure as a result of differing views of the founding member states regarding the right institutional configuration. Indeed, within both organizations, the relationship between their different institutions, and in particular between their intergovernmental (Councils of Ministers) and their supranational ones (the EU Parliament and Commission, and the COE Assembly, although the COE as a whole has no supranational power) have been difficult, especially with regard to cultural affairs. For a useful analysis in parallel, also detailing the early centralizing approach of the COE towards other organizations, see Brossat (1999: 295–340). Other conventions regarding culture and cultural and natural heritage are: the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (1982), the European Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property (1985), the Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe (1987), the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production (1994), European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage (revised) (1995), European Convention for the Protection of the Audiovisual Heritage (2008) and, still not ratified, the Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society. This document is based on a 2006 COE report suggesting that ‘a further step in the relationship should be envisaged, once the EU has acquired legal personality – EU membership of the Council by 2010’ (Juncker, 2006: 29). The 2007 Lisbon Treaty contains the legal basis for the EU to access the European Convention of Human Rights, which has been long lobbied for by the COE. If we consider the EU only, cultural networks receive a consistent share of its cultural budget, but this has not meant tight control on the part of the EU, which has never even specified what a cultural network should be, apart from the fact that it should involve subjects from a certain number of different member states, working together on a ‘cultural project’. Here we specifically address non-governmental co-operation. For an overview of the state of the art of intergovernmental cultural co-operation, see Efah-Interarts (2003), another study commissioned by the EU and carried out by two among the most established European networks. The conclusion is that inter-governmental co-operation is often of a ‘promotional’ nature, both politically and economically, and it tends to be based on simple exchange (the reciprocal circulation, mostly bilateral, of events set up by one country) rather than co-operation as networks themselves have come to define it. There is a small literature accounting for this growing phenomenon, mainly produced by the actors involved themselves (Staines, 1996; Fisher, 1997; Mundy, 1999; Pehn, 1999; Klaic, 2007).

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A simple idea and a vision: the ECOC programme

1. The success of the programme is also testified by the diffusion of the model. In 1997 an ‘American Capital of Culture’ was launched, explicitly declaring to take the ECOC as model, with the backing of the Organization of American States (gathering 35 states of the American continent), but separately managed by a non-governmental organization created for the purpose. The programme started in 2000, involving so far Latin American cities. An ‘Arab Capital of Culture’ has also existed since 2000, under the auspices of UNESCO. Indicative of popular resonance and rootedness is the event’s increasing attraction of volunteers, as other major festive events do: Stockholm ’98, for instance, reported an impressive 2,200 volunteers, three times their own expectations. 2. A small but growing body of scholarly literature is also developing, mostly concentrating on a particular city and from an urban policy analysis approach: see in particular Keohane (1999); Heikkinen (2000); Hitters (2000); Richards (2000); Roth and Frank (2000); Richards and Wilson (2004); García (2005); see also section 3.2. 3. I will be anticipating here a few insights provided by qualitative interviews with ECOC organizers and project directors within them; these are more fully presented in chapter 4 as my case study focused on the year 2000. In interviews I have also asked questions about the programme in general, its official objective and the role of EU within it. I report here the general tone of answers to these questions, which more fully emerges from the in-depth analysis of the year 2000. For details on the methodology, see the Introduction and for more details on evidence collected, see chapter 4. 4. In relation to this pressure a related smaller initiative has also been launched, the European Cultural Month, ‘in one city (from a European country basing itself on the principles of democracy, pluralism and the rule of law) each year, to be known as ‘Europe in [name of city], 199. (O.J. C 162, 03/07/1990). 5. ‘The following criteria, which are not exclusive of other considerations, have already been agreed by the Ministers: (a) the city should be in a European State basing itself on the principles of democracy, pluralism, the rule of law and respect for human rights; (b) they propose to alternate between Community cities and cities from other European countries, without this being a hard and fast rule; (c) the cities should not be from the same geographical zone in consecutive years; (d) a balance should be found between capital cities and provincial cities; (e) for a specific year a pair of cities may be designated jointly’ (O.J. C 336, 19/12/92). 6. The full new selection procedure comes into force in 2013. Until now, notwithstanding the reforms, the selection among cities from the same country still has local variations. Even after the programme became an EU action in 2005 and a European committee was put in charge of selection, the latter still varied consistently from one country to another: for instance, Cork 2005 was selected among four Irish cities by a European committee, whilst for 2008 the UK only nominated Liverpool, after a fierce and massmedia competition among twelve cities had taken place internally, so that the European committee only had to ratify a decision taken elsewhere.

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7. Signs of institutionalization of the ECOC are also the creation in 2006 of the network of universities for the study of the European Capital of Culture (www.uneecc.org), as well as the new impetus of the European Cultural Capitals and Months Network. Originally starting with Glasgow ’90, the latter has favoured the organization of meetings between organizers of one ECOC with their predecessors just coming out of the experience, which have become routine. Otherwise more or less dormant until the early 2000s the network now seems directed towards a more active role given the increasingly formalized access to the initiative (www.eccm-cultural-capitals.org). A similar effect may be seen in the second UK ECOC, Liverpool 2008, which – just as Glasgow ’90 pioneered the first impact study on the event – has set up an unprecedented research and monitoring system parallel to the events themselves (www.impacts08.net), acting as sounding board for the festival and its impact. 8. These three phases have been defined as the age of reconstruction (1940s– 1960s), the age of participation (1970s and early 1980s) and the age of city marketing (from the mid-1980s to the present) (Bianchini, 1999). Within the third approach a further distinction has been made between the so-called ‘festival marketplace’ approach and the ‘cultural planning’ approach. The first, pioneered in the United States as early as the 1950s, pivots on consumption, entertainment and spectacularization to rescue decaying city centres, whilst the second tries to achieve the same results but nurturing local cultural industry and specificities. Drawing on Bianchini and Schwengel (1991), Deborah Stevenson has called them respectively Americanization and Europeanization: the first, ‘increasingly being described as a redevelopment cliché’ (Stevenson, 2003: 100), concentrated on the physical aspects but paid scant attention to the social and cultural specificities, whilst the second ‘is said to draw (albeit in theory) on perceptions of the “form and feeling” of European cities . . . . Central to such strategies is the rhetoric of local difference and diversity’ (ibid.: 104). The possible connection with the more general movement towards European integration and its relevance in the sphere of culture, suggested by the choice of the term Europeanization, is not taken up. 9. The growing ambition of the programme is reflected in increasing financial resources. Although in this aspect the ECOC is characterized above all by the variety linked to the diversity of the cities involved (and their financial potential) early ECOCs were more likely to have a single-figure overall budget (Athens 1985 has a budget of nearly ¤8 million, but Paris had less than ¤1 million, and Florence over ¤20 million), this rocketed to ¤60 million with Glasgow 1990, and it is likely to have similar or even higher budgets in recent years. EU support, although slowly growing, remains minimal. 10. The problem may well be in the use of the term ‘impact’ itself. The following quote shows how circular the argument can become: ‘This term [cultural impact] is already being used to describe two rather different effects. One is the impact on the cultural life of a place. For example, the opening of a gallery . . . The other use refers to the impact of cultural activity on the culture of a place or community, meaning its codes of conduct, its identity, its heritage and what is termed “cultural governance” (i.e. citizenship, participation, representation, diversity)’ (Evans and Shaw, 2004: 6). The two aspects

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are not only ‘rather different’ however, they are of two different types: direct or tangible, and symbolic. The symbolic dimension cannot be measured with an impact approach because it is more diffuse, less under the policy-maker’s control, itself a qualitative rather than a quantitative matter. However, circularity may be more of a problem precisely when looking for direct causality, as the term impact suggests, and less if one recognizes that, as is always the case with the production and diffusion of meaning, there is never just one agent (the policy-maker) and one passive recipient. If it is true that, as many point out, intangible cultural legacies are difficult to attribute to a specific cause, such as a culture-led regeneration strategy, and a contested and ambiguous ‘dimension’, such as the European one, can be even more difficult to pin down (García, 2005: 862; Milner, 2007: 199), this may be a problem for impact studies, but not for a cultural sociology much more wary of ‘direct causality’ in general and interested in the relational and contextual nature of meaning production. 11. Also at the organizational level there is more uniformity than heterogeneity, and this too is often understated in the accounts of the ECOCs’ diversity. So far three main organizational typologies can be singled out: direct administration by local government structures, independent promoting companies, or a mix of the two, that is, a new structure with at its top both independent artistic directorship and representatives of local authorities, the latter being increasingly adopted. I have followed this path of organizational analysis further in Sassatelli (2005b). 12. Information on past ECOCs is unequal, as not all cities have produced the same type of material, and not all of them archived it and can provide access. Current cities, as well as the Network of ECOCs, are a good source of older material as they use this when preparing their own programme. My participant observation of ECOCs 2000 thus gave me access to a considerable amount of material otherwise scattered across Europe. Useful information is also contained in the two official reports and in secondary literature. Only recently the Commission’s DG X has created a small archive, accessible on request, starting from the ECOCs 2002 (with some incomplete material from 1995) and containing mainly application process documents and published programmes of the ECOCs.

4 A ‘wealth of urban cultures’: the European Cities of Culture in 2000 1. This research was the empirical part of my doctorate, which also contained a further focus on the Italian ECOC of 2000, Bologna, my hometown, and where I was living at the time. When I approached the Bologna 2000 organization in 1999 asking if I could observe their work I ended up being enrolled as a part-time stagiaire then collaborator, which provided a perfect position to observe and gather data, not only for Bologna but also for the other eight ‘twinned’ cities. The overall research is reported in Sassatelli (2005a). 2. This is partly with the exception of Santiago’s theme, the only one with ‘Europe’ in it. That theme sought to stress the role of Santiago in the shaping of Europe through pilgrimage, and included a series of academic conferences

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organized by the local university. However, that format rather than theme defines the ‘European dimension’ is shown, for instance, by the fact that Bologna organized an exhibition on ‘Europe born through pilgrimages’, however this was not considered a ‘European project’ as it was not developed in collaboration with the AECC or other European partners. ECOCs 2000, as in any other year, vary considerably in the quantity and type of published information, both on paper and online. In 2000, most had one, more or less glossy general programme, periodical newsletters as well as coffee table-style or report-like final publications. All had websites giving some background information and a detailed programme of events. Observation at the time of the events (informal conversations with the organizers, press cuttings as well as participation in some of the staged events) has been key to integrating the information available. Other reasons mentioned subsequently are Santiago’s relationship with the rest of the world, connected to Galician emigration, and Santiago’s urban meaning, recalling that the city has received the European Prize for town planning from the European Commission. It is interesting to note that, even if in 2000 the possibility of selecting nonEU cities was used for the first time, with as many as four of the nine ECOCs from then non-EU countries, this was never explicitly thematized as an issue, either in documents (internal or public) or in discussions. Only the two cities from candidate countries (Prague and Cracow) made the occasional reference in general speeches and texts to the political significance of the event. Asked in interviews, my informants all played down the significance of this, noting that Europe is more than the EU and that this is an accepted fact. One interviewee – the city councillor for culture in Bologna during the preparatory years for 2000 – interestingly pointed to the ‘contradiction, which is also a beautiful contradiction, that you give the title ECOC to some cities that will still have to pass exams to be part of the EU, when you have already decided that they are [European] . . . culturally they are, but still they will have to pass economic and political exams’. None seemed to feel this contradiction, and the Europeanness of cities outside the EU was taken for granted, although obviously the four cities had very different relationships with the EU: a distant entity for Reykjavik, only a slight object of interest for Bergen, but a desired ambition for the two eastern cities and a step in the accession process (see chapter 3 on this role of the ECOC). After that, and given the need to accommodate spaces for the ‘new’ EU countries but avoiding too many cities sharing the title in the same year, the programme will only be open to EU member states. Proposals are being discussed on reviving the similar, but less ambitious, ‘European Cultural Month’ reserving it for non-EU European countries.

5 From monuments to landscapes: the European Landscape Convention 1. Since 2004 I have participated in several ELC-related events and European projects, concentrating on initiatives stemming from France, Italy and the UK, because these have been the countries most involved in the ELC’s early

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development, from where the interest then spread to the rest of Europe. The fieldwork was thus in this case more discontinuous, but still long-term, taking place between 2004 and 2008 after the ELC ratification: the emerging field of European landscape policies is still rather fluid and open, so I often just had to express an interest in landscape to participate in European events and follow some pilot action experimenting with the ELC, finally occasionally being asked to take an active part as an ‘expert’ myself. The object of my observation has in particular included the COE’s own initiatives but also European networks’ gatherings, ‘transborder workshops’, Interreg projects. Participants came from all COE countries and from a variety of disciplinary and professional backgrounds, as well as from both governmental (at several levels) and non-governmental organizations. This variety is reflected in the 28 in-depth interviews, with key informants from as wide a scope of backgrounds as I could achieve, nationally ranging from France to Slovakia, from Sweden to Spain, and trying to ‘cover’ all the main typologies of people participating at these ‘European’ events and projects. I have recruited my interviewees mainly during fieldwork observation itself (or occasionally contacting people indicated by other interviewees) so that interviews were often the continuation of, or a prelude to, more informal discussions, sometimes over a period of time and across several media, from face-to-face to email. The latter was in a few cases the only option, given that people at international meetings are too busy networking to sit for a long interview; once a personal contact was established they all proved generous with their time, at home. I have also spoken frequently with and interviewed those COE officials involved in writing and managing the ELC. Obviously, all this was not aimed at achieving a representative sample, but at tapping the wider possible breadth of the discursive field. See the Introduction for more details on methodology. 2. This ‘spatial turn’ has disclosed a terminological minefield. In particular, space and place are often used synonymously. For an attempt at a synthesis of positions which do make the distinction, integrating phenomenological (Bachelard and Heidegger) and Marxist (Lefebvre, de Certeau and Foucault) approaches to the related concepts of place and space (without direct thematization of landscape though), see Harvey (1996: 291–326); also Mitchell (2002: vii–xii). Useful working definitions are given by Thomas Gieryn in a thorough review of place-sensitive sociology. Space is ‘abstract geometries (distance, direction, size, shape, volume) detached from material form and cultural interpretation . . . . Space is what place becomes when the unique gathering of things, meanings, and values are sucked out.’ Instead, ‘place is space filled up with people, practices, objects, and representations’ (Gieryn, 2000: 465). 3. Castells himself has hinted at Europe as a prominent example of ‘network state’, but has also further advocated, as a consultant for EU Portuguese presidency of the European Union in 2000, the fostering of what he called Europe’s project identity (Castells, 1998: 338–65). 4. In sociology, landscape has scarcely reached beyond the status of an evocative and frequent metaphor (a clear example of this metaphorical nature of landscape, at its best, is the approach on so-called lieux de mémoire by

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Nora, 1984). This is not the case if we expand our view to other disciplines – anthropology and geography in particular, where landscape is indeed increasingly central. See Tilley (2006) for a useful overview of the multidisciplinary debate on landscape. Among a vast literature see also Williams (1973), Luginbühl (1989), Shama (1995); and Bender (2002); as well as the essential work by Simmel (1913) that still informs, though often unquoted, most definitions, providing an argument for a particularly modern attitude to landscape. 5. The theme of the modern ‘invention’ of landscape has been developed, after Jacob Burckardt, in various essays by Simmel (see Sassatelli, 2006), and variously reprised. For a critical analysis of this tradition, see, for instance, Milani (2001). For a social history of landscape in art, see Cauquelin (1989).

6

Europe as a Landscape: Unity in Diversity in Practice

1. This confirms both an instrumental approach to EU programmes, as this and other interviewees readily admit, and the limits of seeing that as exhaustively interpreting these initiatives, because as the interviewee just quoted stressed very openly: ‘The reference to identity in general and to a European identity particularly are real and important parts of the project. But of course they are also used to secure funding with the EU and phrasing is prescribed by the application guidelines. I do not see that as a contradiction or a problem, as our own interests and those of the EU meet here without any need to force the matter. In our own regional project Europe plays a very important role for the identification of the local people with their own landscape as well as our project.’ 2. To give an idea of the context, two other projects have been approved and financed within Interreg IIIB-Cadses, priority 3.3, in the same period: the SURE (Successful Restoration and Rehabilitation Accompanying Infrastructural Interventions) project, proposed by the Austrian Federal Research Institute for Agriculture in Alpine Regions, and the REKULA (Restructuring Cultural Landscapes) project, proposed by the German Internationale Bauausstellung Fürst-Pückler-Land, are both more focused on conservation and restoration (although with ‘innovative approaches’).

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Index A Fresh Boost for Culture in the EC, 5 Adam, B., 151 Adonnino Report, 51 Agenda 2000, 145 allegiance, 35 Amsterdam, 90, 96, 102 Apollonia, 61 Appadurai, A., 150–1 Ariane, 54 art exhibitions, transnational, 61–2 Association of European Cities of Culture (AECC), 113, 120 see also European City/Capital of Culture Athens, 82, 89–90, 95, 102 Avignon, 111, 113, 114, 125, 130, 134 belonging, 5, 193 Bergen, 111, 121, 125, 134, 135 Bern Convention on the Conservation of Wildlife and the Natural Environment of Europe 158 see also landscape Bologna, 93, 125, 128–9, 131, 134, 205, n. 5 Brussels, 111, 116, 117, 124, 133, 134 Burckhardt, J., 166 Cacciari, M., 38 Castells, M., 148–9 Chabod, F., 22 cities marginal, 95 perceived as European, 81 redefined as European, 106–7 see also city marketing; European City/Capital of Europe; urban regeneration citizenship, 3 European, 42, 52, 54 city marketing, 96, 209, n. 8 civic participation, 141 civic pride, 137

civilizing mission (mission civilisatrice), 36, 40 see also East/West divide; European superiority Civilscape, 181, 182, 184 collective identity, 2, 6, 30 Committee of the Regions, 42, 58 Common Agricultural Policy, 145 see also landscape community, 168 community of destiny, 39 Compendium of Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe, 65 Congress of Local and Regional Authorities (CLRAE), 155 conservation, 144 see also landscape constructivism, 5, 33–4, 142, 149 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 43 Copenhagen, 102 cosmopolitanism, 33 see also urban culture Council for Cultural Cooperation, 61, 65 Council of Europe (COE) 3, 21, 43, 44, 47 conventions produced by, 60–1 cultural cooperation, 60 cultural policy, 61 policies, 3 relationship with European Union, 64–5 think-tank role, 58–68 see also Memorandum of Understanding between the Council of Europe and the European Union Cracow, 91, 113, 134, 205, n. 5 cultural cooperation, 43, 60 cultural democracy, 63 cultural diversity, 34, 63

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cultural globalization, 34 see also globalization cultural heritage, 12, 14, 41, 54 see also cultural and natural heritage conventions; national heritage cultural identity, 2, 4, 5, 25, 201, n. 3 see also Resolution on European Cultural Identity cultural impact assessment, 56 cultural initiatives, 61–2, 68–73 cultural map, 89 cultural and natural heritage conventions, 207, n. 12 cultural relativism, 35 Cultural Routes, 61 cultural space, 4–5 Culture 2000, 54 Culture Programme, 54 culture, instrumentalization of, 97 cvilizational identity, 40 de Rougemeont, D., 26, 69–70 decentralization, 94 Declaration of Copenhagen, 40 Declaration of European Identity, 49 Declaration on Cultural Diversity, 43 Declaration on European Identity, 39, 40 Declaration on the Multilateral Society and European Cultural Identity, 43 decolonization, 29 Delanty, G., 28, 31, 32, 33, 38, 69, 80 Delors, J., 42, 51 democracy, 27 democratic deficit, 3 democratic identity, 32 Derrida, J., 38, 153 destiny, 30 deterritorialization, 3 Directorate for Culture, Cultural and National Heritage, 61 Directorate General for Culture (DGX), 51 diversity 2, 13, 29, 30–4, 35, 74, 153 see also cultural diversity Dolivio, G., 121 Dublin, 90 Durkheim, E., 28

East/West divide, 29 ECOC 2000, 109ff aims, 116 collaboration, 126–7 coordination of programmes, 113, 115 diversity, 123–5 European context, dimension, 118–19, 122 flagship projects, 125–6 funding, 113 identities, 129–37 joint projects, 120–1 multiple nominations, 11 narratives, 92, 101, 103, 109, 110 themes, 113–14 visual representations, 112 ecology, 157 economic development, 96 economic integration, 4 elite culture, 63 ENELC, 181, 182 Enlightenment, 27 see also Europe, idea and myths of; European identity equality, 42 essentialism, 28, 29 ethnicity, 194 EURATOM, 21 Euro-elite, 7, 8, 35 Europe Committee of the Regions, 42, 58, 155 cultural map, 82–94 idea and myths of, 22, 27 Europe of the citizens, 82 Europe, A Common Heritage campaign, 141 Europe’s Environment, 155 European Academy of Landscape Cultures, 145 European Agenda for Culture in a Globalizing World, 57–8 European Coal and Steel Community, 21 European Charter of Fundamental Rights, 42

Index 231 European City/Capital of Culture, 2, 12–13, 79ff as action of special European significance, 83 autonomy, 91 cultural impact, 97–8 flexibility, 88 funding for, 83 opening ceremonies, 90, 91 purpose of, 79, 81 reform of, 83, 92 representation of minorities, 102 as transformation, 105 worldwide programmes, 102 European civilization, 28 European consciousness, 22, 23, 24 European Convention on Human Rights, 60–1 European Council of Architectural Schools (ECLAS), 145 European Court of Human Rights, 60 European Cultural Convention, 43, 47, 50, 59–60 European Cultural Foundation, 12, 69 European cultural space, 56, 79 European Forum for the Arts and Heritage, 70 European Heritage Day, 62 European integration 1, 20–1, 23 European Landscape Convention (ELC), 3, 13–14, 141ff implementation, 177 policy, 177 ratification, 146–7 European Landscape Convention Network of Partners, 145 European Pathways to the Cultural Landscape, 177–8 European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), 179 European space, 180–1 European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), 145, 149–50 European spirit, 26, 131 European symbols, 44, 51 European Union cultural policy, 2, 3, 85–7 cultural programmes, 53, 54 enlargement, 52, 194

narratives, 116 rite of passage to, 91 Europeanism, banal, 197 Europeanization, 1, 59, 143–4, 196–7 creeping, 195–6 Europeanness, 10 federalism, 25, 26, 28, 203, n. 7 Fifty Years of Cultural Convention, 60 Florence, 89–90, 95, 96, 102 flows, 151 Foucault, M., 201, n. 2, 202, n. 5, 212, n. 2 freedom, 52 Gadamer, H., 37 Glasgow, 94, 96, 97, 98, 105–7 globalization, 2, 21, 29, 33, 34 Goody, J., 28 governance, 1, 3, 4, 141 multi-level, 26 governmentality, 202, n. 5 Grandi, R., 111 grassroots, initiatives, networks, programmes, 12, 47, 48, 103, 126 Grassroots Europe, 68–73 Greek antiquity, 27 see also European identity Guizot, F-P., 36 Gulliver, 71–2 Habermas, J., 32, 153 Helsinki, 106, 111, 113, 114, 115, 116, 121, 125 Herzfeld, M., 36 human rights, 30 see also Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; European Convention on Human Rights; European Court of Human Rights humanism, 27 see also European identity identity, 2 identity building, 2, 9, 13, 19, 186 identity formation, 3, 5 ideology critique, 7, 75–6, 142, 197

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Becoming Europeans

imagined communities, 14, 76, 201 inequality, 67 institution building, 10 institutional narratives, 92, 101, 103, 109, 110 international law, 32 International Network of Contemporary Performing Artists, 72 internationalism, 37 Interreg, 175 Interreg III, 179 Istanbul, 91

Mediterranean Landscape Charter, 155–6 Memorandum of Understanding between the Council of Europe and the European Union, 64 Mercouri, M., 82, 90 migration, 29, 194 Mitterrand, F., 90 Monnet, J., 46, 48, 90 Morin, E., 36–7 multiculturalism, 133–4 multiple identity, 6, 8, 35, 36 Myerscough, J., 92, 94 myths, 30

Jenkins, R., 3, 5, 6 Jensen, O., 149, 150

nation, imagined, 201, n. 2 national heritage, 14 national identity, 7, 33 national parks, 158 nationalism, 30, 36 methodological, 8 nationalization, 3 nation-state, 75 neofunctionalism, 25–6, 31, 203, n. 7 networks, networking, 68–9, 70–2, 172, 177, 178, 209, n. 7 Nietzsche, F., 38

Kaleidoscope, 54, 83 Kaelble, H., 20, 203, n. 4 Kertzer, D. I., 5, 24, 100 Kohli, M., 34 land use, 144 landscape, 141ff aesthetic value of, 166 and identity, 178 and national identity, 165 and social diversity, 154 as heritage, 170 attitudes to, 179 diversity, 153 essentialization of, 147 legislation, 158 policy, 144 social perception of, 164 Landscape Europe, 145 Landscape Opportunities for Territorial Organization, 179, 180 Lang, J., 46, 205, n. 1 Lepsius, R., 32 Lisbon Treaty, 204, n. 14 localism, 34, 173, 174 Maastricht Treaty, 41, 52 Madrid, 91 McGuigan, J., 67, 202, n. 5

Open Method of Communication, 206, n. 10 Oreja, M., 114 Palmer, R., 94, 116–17, 132 pan-Europeanism, 36 Paris, 90, 96 Paths for Life initiative, 155 People’s Europe campaign, 51 peoplehood, 6 place, 149 pluralism, 29 plurality, 35 political identity, 3, 203, n. 5 Pont de l’Europe, 61 post-industrialization, 79 practices, 19, 25, 26, 35, 38, 66, 74, 76 Prague, 91, 112, 117, 205, n. 5 Prodi, R., 42 public participation, 176

Index 233 Raphael, 54 Renaissance, 27 see also Europe, idea and myths of; European identity Report on European Union (Tindemans Report), 49, 50 Resolution on European Cultural Identity, 62 see also Council of Europe; cultural identity Reykjavik, 111, 121, 123, 137, 204, n. 5 Richards, G., 95 Richardson, T., 149, 150 rituals, 5 Robins, K., 194 Roche, M., 195, 196 Rotterdam, 102 rural development, 145 see also European Landscape Convention Santiago de Compostela, 111, 117, 123, 125, 134, 210, n. 2, 204, n. 4 self-understanding, 5 Shore, C., 4, 6, 7, 36, 40, 46, 47, 51, 58, 110, 205, n. 2 Simmel, G., 37–8, 166 Single European Act, 41, 42 Smith, A., 30–1 social contract, 32 social engineering, 3 social identity, 201, n. 4 societal transformation, 1 Solemn Declaration on the European Union, 51, 82 solidarity, 5 Soysal, Y., 196–7 space of flows, 149 spatial development, 149–50

state building, 32 Stockholm, 91, 101–2 Stråth, B., 41 Strengthening Community Action on the Cultural Society, 50 subsidiarity, 176 Swedberg, R., 22 symbols, symbolism, 205, n. 17 territory and culture/identity, 142 Theiler, T., 80 Tindemans, L., 49 tourism, 94 town and country planning, 158 see also landscape Treaty of Rome, 205, n. 3 Treaty on the European Union (TEU), 52, 53 UNESCO, 65, 66 Uniscape, 181, 182, 183 unity in diversity 2, 7, 34–9, 42, 88, 120–8, 136, 148 universalism, 37 urban civilization, 3 urban culture, 79 criticism of, 80 urban regeneration, 94–8 see also European City/Capital of Culture urbanization, 3 Valéry, P., 27 Voices of Europe, 123–4 Weber, M., 28 Weimar, 91, 103 West, uniqueness of, 29 see also European identity West Berlin, 90

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