Reconciliation narrative: scope and limits of the Pax Europeana

Abstract

This article focuses on one of the dominant interpretations of European integration, namely the reconciliation narrative that defines European integration as a peacebuilding process. The study is divided into three main parts. The first clarifies the various conceptions of reconciliation as a political process. The second examines the reconciliation narrative as a discourse. The analysis of the references made by EU representatives shows that this narrative can be either backward-looking (an ex post rationalisation of ‘what Europe was’) or future-oriented (a description of ‘what Europe should be’). The third part emphasises the reconciliation narrative as a guideline for action in regions as diverse as the Balkans, East Asia, the African Great Lakes and the Middle East. The aim of this article is to determine whether the EU experience, captured by the reconciliation narrative, can – and should – be replicated. Its main conclusion concerns the need for a polyphonic attitude within the EU, and the need for a modest attitude towards third parties, in terms of both timing and objectives.

Keywords:

• Europe
• memory
• Second World War
• reconciliation

Notes

1. At: https://ec.europa.eu/culture/policy/new-narrative/index_en.htm (accessed 28 June 2016).

2. The project questions the replicability of the European model in terms of conflict transformation. It focuses on four configurations where official representatives commonly refer to the notion of reconciliation: the Franco-German case (post-international conflict), the South-African case (post-internal conflict), the Franco-Algerian case (post-colonial conflict) and the Rwandan case (post-genocide). Beside the corpus of official speeches, the most important methods of data collection were qualitative interviewing and participant observation within the context of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP, Washington), and two European non-governmental organisations (NGO) particularly active in the African Great Lakes. I wish to thank the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for supporting this project. I also thank the meticulous editor and anonymous reviewers of this issue.

3. I would like to thank Clémence Buchet-Couzy for gathering the official speeches of each corpus. The archives of several European institutions were systematically consulted. The most recent speeches are accessible on the website of the EU Parliament.

4. The EU contribution to this programme has amounted to 1.56 billion euro in total. In the view of the Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Creţu, ‘The PEACE programme is at the very core of what the European Union is about. It is a concrete example of the Union’s longstanding commitment to peace and reconciliation’ (Brussels, 30 November 2015).