Mimicking History: The European Commission and Its Education Policy

Decision makers do not act in a policy vacuum. As they develop their programs, they are aware of and influenced by available historical examples. If we look closely at the European Commission's education policy (measures as well as discourses), we notice the existence of similarities in the strategies that it deploys in this field and dynamics deployed much earlier by states engaged in nation building (that is, the redefinition of peoples' spatial representation of their community of belonging; the creation of a framework of shared values; and the process of "detemporalization-naturalization").This observation leads us to believe that if the European Commission decided to become involved in the field of education at an early stage in the integration process, it was not only—as most people believe—to ensure an effective implementation of the Common Market in 1957 or the Single Market in 1987. Rather, through its education policy, the Commission also hoped to create and foster an EU identity that the founding fathers and subsequent "Europeans" considered necessary for achieving their goals of creating "an ever closer union."