On European historical consciousness
A-9-2023-0402
Committee on Culture and Education · Rapporteur: Sabine Verheyen
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Parliament's resolution on European historical consciousness says Europe's contested past is both a risk and an opportunity for integration. It calls for an honest review of the EU's politics of the past and for a shift from a top-down remembrance culture to a citizens-driven culture of remembering.¶¶¶ It asks member states to update history curricula towards European and global history, to teach European integration and citizenship, and to address the marginalisation of women and underrepresented groups. It calls for interdisciplinary, learner-centred teaching and better teacher training.¶¶¶ It calls on the Commission and member states to protect freedom to teach, study and research and free access to archives, and to strengthen media and digital literacy against disinformation and historical revisionism.¶¶ It asks the Commission and member states to strengthen Erasmus+, the CERV programme and the House of European History, and to preserve heritage and memorial sites. It requests EU institutions, member states and candidate countries to foster reconciliation and fight historical revisionism and denialism.¶¶¶
Committee position. The Committee on Culture and Education proposes a resolution that treats Europe's contested past as both a risk and an opportunity, calls for an honest review of EU memory politics, and asks for a shift to a citizens-driven culture of remembering through education, mobility and heritage.¶¶¶
Key points
- Acknowledges that dealing with Europe's conflicting histories at political level is difficult and potentially dangerous, and that steering commemoration is always challenging.¶
- Considers a responsible, evidence-based and critical approach to history, focused on common European values, a precondition for any democratic body politic.¶
- Stresses the need for an honest assessment of the EU's politics of the past, acknowledging both achievements and shortcomings.¶
- Expresses concern about competition and incompatibility between European memory frames, including between Western and Eastern Europe, and calls for bridging regional and ideological divides.¶
- Warns that narrating the EU mainly through the horrors of the past risks a simplistic black-and-white scheme of history.¶
- Calls for moving from a top-down remembrance culture to a bottom-up, citizens-driven culture of remembering involving civil-society organisations.¶
- Calls on the Commission and member states to safeguard freedom to teach, study and research and free access to archives, including through the EU's rule of law mechanism.¶
- Calls on member states to update curricula towards European and global history, to teach European integration and citizenship, and to develop an 'EU manual' with common guidelines.¶¶
- Regrets the lack of a multicultural and gender-sensitive approach in history teaching and calls on member states to address the marginalisation of women and underrepresented groups in national curricula.¶
- Calls for interdisciplinary, learner-centred history teaching using cross-border textbooks, oral histories and digital sources, and for continuous teacher training including Erasmus+ Teacher Academies.¶¶¶
- Calls on the Commission and member states to strengthen media and digital literacy against disinformation and historical revisionism, and to strengthen Erasmus+ and the CERV programme.¶¶
- Requests EU institutions, member states, candidate countries, educational institutions and civil-society actors to foster reconciliation, abstain from instrumentalising history and fight historical revisionism and denialism.¶
Who is affected
- Member states: asked to update history curricula, provide teaching materials and training, and protect places of democratic memory.¶¶¶
- Commission: asked to safeguard academic freedoms, strengthen Erasmus+ and CERV, and support an 'EU manual' for teaching European history.¶¶¶
- Teachers and students: to receive training and tools for fact-based, critical history teaching and digital literacy.¶¶
- EU institutions, candidate and prospective candidate countries, educational institutions and civil-society actors: asked to foster reconciliation and fight historical revisionism.¶
Legal basis: Article 165 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union¶