In the wake of crisis in Europe, bits and pieces of the past are being resurrected as a means of understanding the present and imagining the future. References to historical experiences and lessons from the past have started to reappear in public and private discourse. Most allusions go back to the first half of last century and the experience of war, oppression and dictatorship that have marked the beginning of European cooperation within a fixed institutional framework.

‘Lessons from the past’ have always played a considerable role in EU integration history. But how has their meaning changed over time? Which role do references to WWII, Nazism and Fascism, Civil War and the Holocaust still play in today’s debates on further integration? How is their relevance to the present disputed? What is the process through which they are revived and reanimated in contemporary debates?

This panel is part of a mini-symposium that brings together researchers who concentrate on the way ‘lessons from the past’ have been framed in different national contexts. This particular panel focuses on institutional ways of dealing with the past.