For Elie Barnavi, Europe needs places of remembrance

In an interview carried out by Emmanuel de Roux and Jean-Pierre Stroobants, the Israeli historian, former diplomat an one of the founders of the Brussels Museum of Europe, considers that "Europeans need cultural places and places of remembrance. It suffers from not being imposed on its citizens as a living reality. It is no longer an ideal. People live in Europe without being fully aware of what unites them. This is no doubt because they have more powerful frameworks such as the nation. But it is also because Europe has itself failed to lift people's spirits. And yet, as an historian who, granted, is steeped in ideology, I am convinced that Europe does exist, that there is such a thing as a unique European civilisation ... . The European political project can only exist and succeed if it leans on a past, a history, an ideological dimension."

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