In Search of Lost Time: Memory‐framing, Bilateral Identity‐making, and European Security

Abstract

Bilateral relations between France and either Germany or the UK are the backbone of European security and defence cooperation. From a strategic and cultural point of view, these relations are not self‐evident. In this article, we track the memory‐framing processes accompanying the creation of major bilateral initiatives. Leaders such as Adenauer and De Gaulle, Mitterrand and Kohl, Blair and Chirac, and Sarkozy and Cameron imagined bilateral communities of fate informed by mutually understandable historical memories: the World Wars for the Franco‐German relationship and the Empire for the Franco‐British relationship. Based on these memory frames, Franco‐German identity undergirds a policy‐based integration of core state powers while Franco‐British identity informs capacity‐building and force projection (a resource‐based integration). These bilateral identities led to earmarking national military forces for common purposes and intertwined defence industries. In some cases, they also provided an impetus for EU cooperation in the context of the Common Foreign and Security Policy or the Common Security and Defence Policy.

Collective Identities and the Integration of Core State Powers: Introduction to the Special Issue

“…Conversely, military cooperation and élite socialization is the centre of the contribution by Stephanie Hofmann and Frédéric Mérand (). In this article, Hofmann and Mérand explore the construction of collective memory frames, that is, how political leaders used reference points from the past to create a community of fate, structuring their world‐views when it came to matters of national defence and cooperation.…”

Elastic Relations: Looking to both Sides of the Atlantic in the 2020 US Presidential Election Year

“…This is not to say that institutionalized relationships are perfectly elastic – that is, that they automatically return to their original shape after the pressure is removed. Instead, shared experiences and memories can have lasting effects (Hofmann and Mérand, 2020); hence, some changes or at least fears are likely to stay.…”

Identity Politics, Core State Powers and Regional Integration: Europe and beyond

“…The history of the ECSC demonstrates that sharing a common history of destruction relating to not one but two world wars united the discourse of the founding fathers of the European integration project (see also contribution by Hoffmann and Mérand, ). In their pursuit of a united, peaceful and prosperous Europe, Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi and Robert Schuman drew on the European peace initiatives promoted by the Pan‐European and other movements founded in the 1920s or the European union, which French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand proposed to the General Assembly of the League of Nations, with the support of his German counterpart, Gustav Stresemann, in September 1929 (Stevenson, ; Loth, , pp.…”

“…In short, the beginnings of European integration were originally driven by attempts of interwar and postwar elites to integrate core state powers over external security. Their attempts were legitimized by their shared narratives of overcoming a common past of war and destruction (see also Hofmann and Mérand, ; Patel, , pp. 88–90).…”