as an extension of their struggle at national levels guard’ who had come into politics during the regime
to impose their view of communism, expose their changes, while a third group comprised peripheral
opponents, or send a signal to Russia. However, most actors who had begun their European careers with
of these politicians were rather marginal members little political experience. Their respective political
of the PACE and the EP when they entered these resources entailed different ways of approaching
assemblies, and some of them were aware of the their European term of office, while the importance
wide gap between their strong political capital at they attached to their European mandate, depending
home and their relative insignificance in European on the point in their career at which it occurred,
arenas. The new representatives from the former defined their commitment to the anti-communist
Eastern bloc had to absorb the rules of the European cause. Only the representatives initially equipped
parliamentary game in order to fully assume with considerable resources, such as well-known
their role in the European assemblies. To acquire former dissidents, or those combining strong
institutional credit and to influence parliamentary national political capital and relevant European
work, specific know-how was needed, such as the expertise, managed to achieve re-election as MEPs.
capacity to build coalitions, the ability to present This circumstance shows that the mobilisation of
admissible arguments and the willingness to comply memory as a source of political capital is insufficient
with legitimate rules of interaction. on its own; a contender wishing to make their
This initial marginal status was actually
one of the driving forces of a project designed
simultaneously to strengthen individual positions
mark on the European stage must also possess the
requisite political skills.
Second, the rationale of European-level political
within European assemblies and to reshape European debates and policies for managing painful pasts
historical memory. Anti-communist mobilisations diluted the anti-communist cause into a broader
were a trial-and-error process characterised condemnation of all types of dictatorships that
by a series of struggles and compromises with befell Europe in the twentieth century. The rules of
dominant Western conservative allies and left-wing European political competition entail attempts to
opponents. The memory entrepreneurs’ gradual mitigate ideological conflicts and to denationalise
mastery of European roles, acquired i.a. through issues, in order to build broad coalitions across
their engagement in the anti-communist cause, parliamentary groups and national delegations.
exemplifies a broader process of professionalisation But anti-communist representatives, who
of the newly elected PACE and EP members. overwhelmingly belonged to the Europe’s People
European assemblies were therefore an echo Party, faced fierce ideological opposition from their
chamber for demands, related as much to the peers in the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and
memory entrepreneurs’ militant backgrounds and Democrats and in the European United Left. In 2008,
their political affiliations as to their decision to the Social Democrats even set up a History Working
embark on a European career. Group at the EP with the explicit goal of ‘countering
The analysis of this unlikely mobilisation
provides three main insights into the politics and
policies of the European memory.
First, despite their geographical and
any attempts to rewrite history’.
Anti-communist memory entrepreneurs were
also forced to adjust their claims to the normative
beliefs that underpin the existing EU policies for
ideological homogeneity, anti-communist memory managing painful pasts. Their demands were at odds
entrepreneurs present different sociopolitical with the patterns of remembrance established in
profiles depending on their previous national and the West in the 1970s and consecrated by the EU in
European political trajectories. Some of them were the 1990s. Their request for the acknowledgement
former leaders of the opposition to communism, of their own suffering, in their view wrongfully
others belonged to an ‘anti-communist young ignored, was at odds with the ‘politics of regret’
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