ABSTRACT
The main function of the public sphere in democratic and democratizing societies is the negotiation of values. After the general remarks on the concept of value, this chapter discusses the concept of constitutional patriotism, based on work on coming to terms with the past as a potential European value source and provider of institutional and legal cement. It focuses on the experiences of a European value crisis in the 1930s, not least in the sciences, is particularly relevant as a historical point of departure for such work. The chapter discusses the preconditions for, and feasibility of, a European memory work on the past. The construction of the European past has been practised too innocently. The two versions of history, the nationalist and the European have not blended yet. Given the danger of non-liberalism, Mller argues for a thinner European memory construction, with the aim of contextualizing and comparing existing national attachment.
