Author: Cristina Stanc

Abstract:Much has been said on how important a common European identity is for governance in the European Union. Most often put in the context of the so called‘democratic deficit’, the European identity is thought to be an answer to legitimacy problems of the EU, by creating a European public sphere. The following paper goes beyond this discussion and investigates processes of identity building in the European Union. It begins with the premise that remembrance is a way of creating a common identity and that the EU starts creating a common remembrance through discourse. Applying the frame analysis to policy documents, this paper aims at presenting the strategy by which the EU policy of remembrance strikes the balance between creating a sense of commonness and respecting diversity of memories.

Keywords: European identity, European remembrance, European Union, discourse analysis

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