HOMER - From History to Memory Culture: Narratives of the European Council Summits

The future of the European Union will increasingly be shaped by the perception of its history and an evolving European memory culture. Against this backdrop, it is necessary to pay more attention to the European Council which has been the key institution in terms of history making decisions.

HOMER is a six step programme that seeks to identify narratives, focusing on three history making summits of national leaders in the history of European integration. The almost forgotten 1969 summit of The Hague was central to the emergence of the EU and the European Council as an entity. The Maastricht summit of 1991 was a history-making act for the deepening of European integration. The 2009 summit of Lisbon opened a new age for the construction of the EU. The project will assess these summits and analyse their roles in developing a ‘master narrative’ of European integration. The main rationale of the project is to contribute to the evolving European memory culture by scrutinizing past and existing interpretations while simultaneously building on these.

For further information, please visit the project's website or contact Johannes Müller Gómez.