Launched during the French Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (second half of 2019) and created in 2020, the “Observatory for History Teaching in Europe” is not concerned by the announcement made by President Emmanuel Macron during his speech on 9 December on the programme of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, says Frenchman Alain Lamassoure, president of the Observatory, in an interview given to EUROPE yesterday.
“The Observatory must remain independent”, insists the former MEP (EPP), pointing out that the French President has announced that he wants to “relaunch a major project on the history of Europe”, while the new platform he is leading within the Council of Europe is very specifically concerned with history teaching.
This does not prevent synergies from being established between this structure and the European Union.
“The Observatory was created within the legal framework of the Council of Europe as an ‘enlarged partial agreement’”, says Mr Lamassoure. This means that it can include not only the organisation’s 47 member states, but also relevant international institutions. For example, the European Union and UNESCO have observer status at the conference, which allows them to contribute.
“It is within this framework that, at the instigation of the Vice-President of the European Commission, Margarítis Schinás, we are setting up a partnership with the European Union, which was confirmed on 2 December at the opening of our first public conference in Strasbourg”, notes the president of the Observatory.
Mr Schinás announced support of €1 million (under the Erasmus+ programme) and confirmed that “a cooperation project will emerge from the commitment of the EU and the Council of Europe to history teaching”.
“We need to look for what unites us and bring us closer to a convergent, if not common, identity” in order to contribute to the “strengthening of democracy, which is one of the six main priorities of the European Commission”, added the commissioner responsible for “promoting the European way of life”.
“At this stage, we are thinking together about how this cooperation could be made concrete”, says Alain Lamassoure. “It could - but this is only a hypothesis - rely on the network of cross-border conurbations, develop a ‘network of networks’ of associations, institutes, colloquia, etc., which are interested in history teaching, or even envisage an approach based on ‘European places of remembrance’”, he adds.
The Observatory’s main objective is to take stock of history teaching in the 47 member states of the Council of Europe, to inform public opinion so that it “provokes debate” where “everyone is interested in what is happening in the classrooms of neighbouring countries”. The aim: “to make the stories of the past compatible”.
In 2022, it plans to publish a first ‘snapshot’ devoted to the specific topic of the treatment of pandemics and natural disasters in European history textbooks.
The general comparative table on history teaching in Europe is planned for 2023 and is expected to launch debates within humanities academies, teacher and university networks, NGOs, media, national and European parliaments.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is preparing a report and a Resolution on the Observatory, and the Observatory is in contact with the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education.
Link to the Observatory’s website: https://bit.ly/3mpGbTM (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)