European Union: Manipulating History with Tax Payer Dollars

When given the choice, most Europeans identify themselves according to their national heritage rather than as Europeans. According to the European Union’s polling data, only 33 percent of Europeans believe their voices count in Brussels compared to 52 percent who believe their voices count in their national governments. The EU is determined to change this.

In 2008, the EU spent more money promoting itself than Coca Cola spends each year on advertising worldwide. Every year, the EU burns through millions of euros trying to foster a single European identity.   Tactics range from writing comics and textbooks to taking on a “European Heritage Label,” that marks certain geographical sites.  One of the more expensive and controversial initiatives is the creation of a “House of European History.” 

In February 2007 then-Parliament President, Hans-Gert Pottering called for the installation of a museum dedicated to expanding the idea of a European identity:

I should like to create a locus for history and for the future where the concept of the European idea can continue to grow… It [the House]  should [be] a place where a memory of European history and the work of European unification is jointly cultivated, and which at the same time is available as a locus for the European identity to go on being shaped by present and future citizens of the European Union.’

A year later, the European Parliament Bureau voted unanimously to create the museum.  Housed in the Eastman Building, the 4,800-square-meter museum space is set to open in 2014.  It will showcase European history from 1945 to the present. 

Controversy is brewing over what aspects of that severely truncated history the museum will exhibit.  It has become readily apparent that each EU member state has its own perception of history—even when it’s limited to only EU history.  Would the French, Dutch and Irish rejections of the EU constitution/Lisbon Treaty be mentioned?  What about the recent bailouts of certain member states?  According to Kent University professor, Frank Furedi, the House of European History is likely to skip over “the real Europe with its age-old rivalries and disputed achievements.”  Instead, “we are likely to get an institution devoted to the celebration of empty values like ‘diversity,’ ‘difference,’ and ‘sustainability.’”

If the content of the museum isn’t enough to stir emotions, its enormous price tag will be.  The budget appropriation running from 2011-2015 was set at €52.4 million plus €13 million per year for future operating costs, but these prices are subject to increase.  The The Daily Telegraph reports costs have skyrocketed by 90 percent.  While an EU spokesman claims this increase is untrue, MEPs are requesting a detailed business plan outlining the “long-term business strategy of the House of European History.” 

The exact budget for the museum may be in question, but one thing is for certain: While the EU spends exorbitant amounts of money creating a palace dedicated to its own vanity, ancient landmarks across Europe are crumbling. In a time when national governments are slashing budgets, the EU continues to waste taxpayers’ money on a hollow representation of Europe.

The European Parliament should do what MEPs such as the UK’s Roger Helmer and Hungary’s Lajos Bokros have suggested and scrap the whole project.  No money should be spent on building a shrine to EU narcissism.  The EU should respect their member states’ history, not try to rewrite it.