Good morning, and welcome all to the Ramune House. I think after yesterday evening's insightful presentations and pleasurable cocktail dinner, we are off to a good start for a very productive day of discussions here at the Ramune House. Allow me first to introduce you to this place. The Ramune bought this house in 1945, right after World War II. It was here that Ramune drafted the Schumann Declaration after discussing it with the French Foreigner First Minister, who gave it his name. So here, in 1950, Europe was born, as we know it today. Here, the father of Europe died in 1979, almost exactly 40 years ago. So because I just said the father of Europe, because allow me a moment of pride, if we hear mention of a founding father of Europe, or we hear mention of one of the founding fathers of Europe, well, there might be doubt about who we are talking about. If we say the father of Europe, pretty much everybody knows we're talking about Ramune. And it is so in the sense that today, Ramune almost became a brand for all things European. There's the European Commission, of course, the Ramune Actions, the Ramune Chairs throughout the world. So it has become, in a way, a brand for all things European. But who was this father of Europe? Was he a politician? Was he a civil servant? Was he an entrepreneur? Well, probably not specifically any of the both things, they both mentioned things, and probably all of them at the same time. I would say that Ramune, to the historian, for starters, he is a very elusive individual. Why? Because he was someone who chose throughout his life, and he was instrumental to peace and unity in very many different moments of his life, not just at the moment of the human declaration. He was an individual that consistently chose to face himself for the benefit of the goals he was working for. He didn't want the personal perceptions, the perceptions of his own personality in others to be in the wake of the goals that he had made his own, and he hoped to make the goals of the collectivity. So from that point of view, for the historian, it's at the very beginning, when one starts exploring the figure of Ramune, it is quite difficult to make sense of the information that you are, and everything, let's see. Well, I have to say that once you go deeper and deeper, Ramune is a fascinating individual with many, many layers. Many adventures actually come your way when you study Ramune in the sense that while he was in his early youth and in the United States and Canada, he got married in the Soviet Union, you are going to learn a lot about that during the visit to the museum this evening. But just to say now that he is, after all, a fascinating figure also when you try to learn more about his life, about the narrative that can be developed around his life and work. But just on a more also personal note, but also not connected to what we do here, let me share with you that although the first edition of the Taking Stop of European Memory Policies event was started that in Brussels last year with Jarvie Gichel, who unfortunately cannot be here today, it was a successful event. It was another format different from this year. But this year, of course, for us, the fundamental involvement and organization of the commission means like a stepping out of this event and bringing it definitely to a higher level. But when we started this meeting in this kind of series of meetings, hopefully in Brussels last year, then there was after that, we thought, well, next year in the Jamone house. And I said, of course, yes, yes, makes sense. But then I thought to myself, again, like Jamone, a brand for all things European, we have defined since the creation of the Jamone house service about a year ago in July last year also this place, the direct management of the European Parliament of this place, we have defined or redefined this place as a, yes, a historic house museum, but also a place and meeting point for public conversation on Europe, past, present, and future. So from that point of view, of course, like a meeting about memory, yeah, why not? Of course, like an ideal place. But I thought I had to, in my own thinking, I thought I had to go deeper and just define to myself, let's say, why a meeting about memory policies in Jamone's property house, et cetera. Why? Well, because, as I said, he was an illusive individual and sometimes he's perceived as someone who, in a way, despised history. How shocking, right, with this? Sometimes I like to say that to me, and this is a very personal reflection, in a way he tried to do with Europe what collectively the French Revolution had tried to do with its society, like put the clock back to zero. And a little bit just to forget, to get rid of everything that came before, as a strategy, as a way of making progress in change, in favor of change. So he would say sometimes history is the excuse, it seems to me like the excuse of the people who don't feel like acting, don't feel like doing anything. So that's why it's puzzling for the historian, that's why I'm saying it's puzzling for the historian to start off with these kind of assumptions, and then you need to emphasize with the character. But then, just to, in my finding of this, let's say, narrative that could make sense, to say yes, Jean Monnet, memory, let me stress two very important facts. Well, one of the teachings of Jean Monnet that he fought for throughout his life from his very early youth, already in World War I, so we're not talking about World War II, we're talking about World War I already. He was always appalled by the short memory of people right after the war. He was quite successful in convincing a number of individuals of political representatives during both wars to work in a certain way. And he could prove that his advice was highly successful and was instrumental to sometimes even shortening the war or to alleviate the effects of the war. Kans, for example, said at some point, that in case of World War II, that Jean Monnet managed to shorten the war by one year, so one single individual. But he was appalled because what makes sense during the war, thanks to him, right away people would forget. And decision makers were not able to work on the same basis only one or two years after the war. So in a way, the blueprint for a European unity, the final or the ultimate blueprint, the shoe in declaration was a consequence of this twice at least, this being convinced or realizing that unless something very big was happening, this mistake was bound to be repeated again and again. We work well when there's war effort, but then in peace, we don't even know where to start. So that was short memory in this sense. And then the second important point, it is that, well, yes, Jean Monnet was a pragmatist, definitely. But he knew in the second half of the 40s, he knew to recognize a whole idealist movement that was unfolding then, Congress of Europe in the Hague, European movement. Yesterday we were talking about Churchill and how he launched the idea of European unity after the war. So this idealism that was in the air he was almost the only one who was able to recognize that by putting it to work in a very specific way, in a very pragmatic way. So in a way, he was not indifferent to all this more, let's say, generic theoretical thinking about where do we come from, where are we headed, et cetera. It's just that he chose to do something with it, something that was reflected upon by others that was the matter for like really, really thorough activism at the time. And he managed to give it a very specific shape. So that's why I think it makes full sense in more than one way that we're here today that the Jean Monnet House hosts this event. And we hope, of course, hopefully with the help of the European Commission of the Serratary, the European Serratary for Memories to continue this series of events in the future and to enrich the discussions and the issues at stake as we organize more and more of these events in the future. Just to conclude, just a few more practical words about the initial goals of the event, of taking stock event last year and this year. We have to say that this started as a network visit of the Observatory for European Memories in the House of European History last year. And little by little, we added like new layers of analysis of reflection. And I think then we came up with a result that we were very satisfied with. And I have to say in particular, thanks to the presence and the contribution of the European Commission in a very specific way. In a way of like really delivering among other things like hard data also about programs, about the state of things, statistics. So it was, in my view, a very useful exercise for analysts, researchers, but also of course like project managers, leading people from associations to actually refer to something specific in their further thinking, in their further work, knowing that there is a state of play that has been laid out, that has been communicated and that of course it's up for discussion for exchanges. So I think it was a very useful basis that was introduced last year. This year, and with the presence of course of all the different organizations that are gathered here today, and thanks again to the European Commission, we are again adding another level of complexity in a good way of refined work, which is to have a series of workshops to go in depth with specific questions that are pressing questions for all the organizations, things that need to be addressed, that need to be discussed. Of course, we have a very, very dense, very crowded program today, so it's not just that, it's many more, but of course for the sake of time, I'm just going to right away give the floor to my colleagues, and I just want to maybe add that at the end of the discussions and after the conclusions that there will be a visit to the Historic House Museum, I would like to stress that given also the practical issues of the capacity, the number of people that we can host in the house at the same time, et cetera, we thought we wouldn't make this visit compulsory, of course we encourage all of you to at some point get a glimpse of the house, but I would say feel free to do that during coffee breaks also, to take your own time to, again, it will be a very crowded dense program, so I think all of us will need some moment of just walking away and just breathe in the air outside, et cetera, why not also a quick stroll through the house while you do that, there's interactive elements, et cetera. You can do your own visit also if you so desire, so feel free please, and at the end of the day, if you feel like doing that with the group, fine, if you feel like staying also here, just grab another coffee, chat a little bit more with the rest of the participants, that is okay too, and that also is a little bit the organizational aspect of moving around in the house, otherwise we're going to split the groups in different guided tours, and it will be also fine, but I just wanted to stress that. By the way, if you have luggage or things with you that you would like to put somewhere else, feel free to go to the back of this room, there's the, by the restrooms, there's also an area, there's chairs, tables, you can just leave the staff there or at the vistea, at the beginning, at the entrance of the room also, that will also allow us to move more freely around this space and not to be encumbered by items like suitcases, et cetera. I think that's all for now, I'm sure Marie or the rest of the colleagues as we go, and of course with the presentation from Gil Pelayo, also that will be also intended to give a little bit of a wider framework to the things that I just have hinted at, of how we're going to proceed in our discussions. I'm sure many more practical elements will be communicated as we start our discussions. Thank you very much and welcome again and enjoy your stay in the Jamona house. Let's start this table, we are not on time as you see, so we'll try to be fast. But before to introduce our speakers, I would like to say today is a special day because in Spain, the dictatorship is, the dictator Francois being exhumed from the Bayer de los Caídos, the huge mausoleum next to Madrid, so it's now a challenge of European policy and what to do with that space too. But to talk about challenges, European policies of memory challenges, now in Europe we have all speakers today. And in the first time, we have Marcos Bruch, his senior investigator and administrator at the European Parliament, associate professor of modern contemporary history at Heidelberg University, and a fellow of the Heidelberg Academy of Science and Humanities. He has a background in history and political science and received his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence in 2009. Between 2009 and 2012, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Helsinki, funded by the European Research Council. Marcos has lectured in various countries in Europe and beyond, including the USA and Indonesia, and his work has been awarded at several locations. His main fields of interest are European political and constitutional history, political theory and philosophy, comparative research on democracy and dictatorships, and identity studies. Thank you, Marcos. And after Marcos is going to speak, Sarah Gensburger is a full, she's a full professor in social science at the French National Centre for the Scientific Research in Paris, Sena Reyes, former student of the Cold Normal Superior. She received her PhD in Sociology of Memory from the EHESS, a called the Zotitude in Science and Socials, and her habilitation in political science from Science Po Paris. Winner of the Best Dissertation Award from the French Political Science Association, her work has brought the topic of memory to the field of mainstream analysis of public policies. Defended in May in 2019, her habilitation dealt with the governmentality of memory, the social appropriations of remembrance policies by citizens, and their social effects, limits and black lashes. In parallel, she has also dealt with the memorialization process in the aftermath of terrorist attacks in Paris from a very original perspective. She is the author of eight books, the more recent ones are Memory on My Doorstep, Chronicles of Bataclan Big Boar Hood, and National Policy Global Memory, the commemoration of the righteous among the nations from Jerusalem to Paris. And the last one, Beyond Memory, Can We Really Learn from the Past? will be released at the beginning of 2020 by Palgrave. This book provides a fresh perspective on the familiar belief that memory policies are successful in building peaceful, tolerant and inclusive society. Society's topic of importance for a round table and more broadly for today's meeting. So thank you both for coming here, and Marcos, as you won. Yes. Well, Richard, thank you so much for your kind words of introduction. A great thank you to the organizers of this event for having me. We are somewhat behind schedule, so let me take you through my presentation today, where I will try to outline a little bit the issue of European historical memory as such, the possibility of such a thing. And Sarah will later rather talk about what are the effects of memory policies on people, on societies. What I will concretely do, a few words of introduction, then talking about the concept of European historical memory. What does it mean? What might it mean? Certainly, talking about prospects for European remembrance policies more generally, and finishing with some concluding remarks more of a more personal note. And I can assure you also, you don't need to be afraid, even for, you know, I fear, the institutional designation. You don't have to expect now a PR activity from my side. And I will try also to be as critical as my position allows in the context of the European Parliament, but also showing that not everything is perfect when it comes to memory policies, especially at the European Union level. First of all, however, let us summarize together what we understand by historical memory as a concept. Maybe the broadest definition we can have is that, first of all, it's a specific form of some form of collective memory without going now into all the theoretical debates about collective memory. But let's agree that it's a specific form of somehow collectively memorizing the past and in doing that, also building community in one way or another. Certainly it's then about some form of collective understanding, and I put it under inverted commas of the past, so that you can agree on certain aspects of that past in order to be really a form of collective memory. At the same time, and some think that seems to be forgotten, especially among historians, historical memory is not the same as historical truth. And as historians, those of you know anyway that the concept of truth is not one that you really use in history, the historical facts, but there's for sure not one historical truth. There might be different ones, different versions, and especially truth can change over time. So let's not confuse these two concepts. And because it is not about historical truth, historical memory is in the end always about subjectivity and value judgments. They might be with the best intentions, but it's not about objectivity in the literal sense of the word. Because simply historical memory too has a somewhat functional role in societies. But because of that, we must not forget also that it's open to some form of politicization. Again, it could be with good intentions, but also with bad words. On that note, let us go now to the issue of European historical memory. The way it's often used suggests that it's an established concept, and at least you can easily understand what it means. However, it's maybe more complicated than that. Simply for the fact that historical memory in Western societies in particular has mainly been framed in the context of nation states. Why is that important? First of all, because trying to bring it from that established national level to a supranational is already a daring attempt per se, because you have certain frictions in societies that are elementary already at national context, but they become even more important at the supranational level. So we should maybe first think about the national level and the problems historical memory already faces there, or rather the elements that are constitutive of historical memory at the national level because they help to understand the problems of historical memory at the European level even better. First of all, we see that there is an intrinsic correlation of historical memory on the one hand, and the nation or the state, or rather the nation building and the state building process or the other.  Secondly, what we can learn also from the national level that the references to the past are usually not general, but very specific and selective in nature. So you memorise certain elements, think of the US history. You remember the Boston Tea Party maybe, but not all aspects of the long American history. And the same can be said, of course, for all histories in Europe too, which is also clear for two reasons because the potential public impact is bigger when you focus on certain elements that get almost an iconic character. But it also helps to essentialise and simplify history for non-specialists in the sense of you cannot expect that everyone is a historian. So doing this has also in a way an educational function, but the question is what are the repercussions of that approach to history? And that one is often a certain tendency to elevate national history and create certain myths about it, so that you start to somehow distort national history by focusing on very specific elements and subscribing a very specific role to that elements. Now when we keep that in mind and think about European historical memory and the options one have, one could say there are essentially three at the European level. How do you deal with entrenched national histories that have those three intrinsic elements I was just describing? The first would be simply to acknowledge the diversity and the parallelism of national remembrance culture, which is maybe the easiest way forward, but it would also mean you admit there cannot be anything like European history. Secondly, is you try to base remembrance on large, I use here the great term topoy, such as freedom and democracy. The advantage here is it might be general enough still to bind everything together, but for that very reason, it's also somewhat non-binding way of doing it. And of course what someone understands by democracy can vary quite a bit as we all know. That leaves us with the third option, remembrance based on clearly defined historical moments and events. So trying in a way to imitate what has happened at the national, which is obviously a much more binding approach to remembrance, but also struck with all the problems national histories also face. So how can you possibly agree on common historical moments and events at the supranational level when it's already hard to do that at the national? So that's the essential problem here. What has European remembrance policies done over the last 50, 60 years now almost? And here I should start that obviously here too, all the efforts at European level of creating something like European remembrance has been aimed at generating political legitimacy. One should be honest about that too. It's not just for the sake of understanding history better, it's also generating legitimacy for what we might call the European project. At the same time, there's maybe nothing wrong with doing that as well. It's about fostering something like a European sense of belonging, or let's use the term even European. And traditional reference point in that endeavor have been on the one hand, this broad idea of European cultural heritage. The second world war more general has a negative contrast, and the European integration process itself. So in a way, especially, show more of the idea of an ever closer union and the success of integration as almost a point of self-referential remembrance. So here we are somehow in the second group I outlined. So it's rather general reference points. But what we witness, especially since the 1990s, is trying to go also for the third alternative, namely defining very specific reference points. Stronger than that was the case before. It's on the one hand, the Holocaust. On the other hand, more generally 20th century totalitarianisms, and I put consciously the plural, and I will get back to that in a second. Let us see what the EU has been doing and the European Parliament in particular. The main focus has been on what might be described as awareness-raising political initiatives and activities. That was support for the Holocaust Remembrance Day. Obviously, as you all know, this is a day not just commemorated at the European level. It was an international initiative, but it was a strong focus also of the European institutions to establish that day in the European Union. The European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, 23rd of August, the Day of the Signing of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact. But also, most recently, the EP resolution on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe. Just one month ago, adopted by the European Parliament with a huge majority. But not without problems as well, and I don't want to get into too much detail on that too, because the picture might give you a bit of a distorted view, if any, and more than 500 members agreeing on it, but on the resolution, for example, that has never gone through the committee level, which was, as I pushed through in two days. Anyway, just saying, there are for sure initiatives to raise awareness for the importance of historical memory. Obviously, and maybe the most important European Union initiative, the Europe for Citizens program, on which I don't need to talk much more because you are all very much familiar with it, but you could also say the strong advocacy for the European Year of Cultural Heritage, which we had last year with a strong focus on history, is a sign for keeping history alive and making it useful for understanding our present and forming our future. And not least, the establishment of the House of European History in Brussels, in the Charmonnais House, is also important symbolic things to do with the historical memory. But the truth is also that there are failed initiatives, and some, you might say, they have failed in substance, but others have really failed already in terms of procedure, and I just mentioned one. There was the attempt to historical memory in cultural education in the European Union. This was the only own initiative report of the parliament I have seen failing in the community on cultural education, and that's also telling. The only one that failed is on history because they could simply not agree on what it might mean and where the focus should be. So also showing that it's anything but a simple task. Yes. That takes me now, serve part, prospects. What are the dilemmas? One could also say shortcomings or failings, but maybe dilemma is less provocative, of EU remembrance policies. Maybe the biggest problem still is that we have not really one memory policy. It's rather competing memory frames. On the one hand, the idea of the singularity of the Holocaust which represents especially Western European remembrance cultures. At the same time, the more Eastern European narrative of national socialism and communism, especially Stalinism, as equally as evil. And these two frames have not really been connected so far. They are really rather in parallel and are covered by this language of the common EU remembrance policies. And you can also see even the commemoration of the days I was mentioning before, while the Holocaust remembrance days usually commemorated in the Western Europe very much, the 23rd of August is almost exclusively commemorated in Eastern Europe. Has not really much of a relevance in this. At the same time, one could also argue that it's a very teleological and reductionist understanding of history. So in a way what the EU is doing, and maybe a big mean is, you contrast a dark past with a bright present. And while there might be some truth to it, it's also dangerous if you stay there because it gives people the feeling that everything was bad and you create just like a narrative of everything is good now. It ignores at the same time other central elements and problems of European and world history. And maybe the most obvious is colonialism. That is often left out in that narrative which had relevance essentially for all states of Europe, either because they were colonial powers themselves or they were colonialized by others. But this is an element that is almost entirely left out in that discourse. And finally, and somewhat paradoxically, because the European Union claims to do remembrance policies, some member states take it also as a reason why they don't have to be particularly active because the EU is doing the job for us and you have already named the real evil, national socialism, Stalinism, so all the rest seems almost not as bad as it might. So paradoxically, the efforts at European Union level at least can have the effect as well that at least there is less of energy on the national level to really have a critical stance towards one's own history and especially other elements that are not covered by EU remembrance policies. So what I have been consistently arguing for is therefore what I call a move from remembrance culture to culture of remembering. And this is not a mere rhetorical exercise. It really means more moving from content, trying to define what we should remember more towards process. How do we approach contested histories and divisive histories? So to say, how do we create the right forum for discussing rather than trying to agree on a common history? That would mean you can approach and you should approach Europe's past on the foundation of common core values, but do more than that and create open forum of discussions both within and between European nations. And the forum like this one is a good example for one of those forum, how they should look like. People come together, they share experiences, how they build complicated history and histories, but also trying to find agreement how we approach those history. It involves however also obviously addressing uncomfortable segments of national history in a dispassionate and open manner, not just focus on the nice elements of it. And coming back to what I said at the beginning, renouncing the notion of historical truth, at least that there is one historical truth and that's the only one that can hold. And finally, maybe most importantly, acknowledging the risks of any remembrance policy. We should always be aware, again, even if with the best intentions, every form of policy is after all also about politics, meaning there are risks involved in all these endeavors. And the question is indeed, should policy makers ever legislate on the past? That's a fundamental question we have always asked ourselves. Is it more a chance or a risk? Obviously, where I see the most important way to go forward is education policies, where it seems to be the right place to raise awareness of European diversity both in the past and the present, to provide the necessary means to address national histories impartially and in broader trans-European and global contexts, but also encourage young citizens to become actively involved in discussing history and to contribute to an informed historical memory. You could say also civic engagement, the second strand of Europe for citizens, in a way can also be embodied by thinking about history. So citizenship is not just about talking about voting rights and so on, it's also about discussing history and remembrance. So obviously the ways to do it are curricula and principles of teaching, pedagogy, but also for the multiplayer effect alone, teacher training. So these are the two ways to do it. You see obviously already in both fields, there are essentially no competences for the European Union. So this is a task of the member states and not a difficult one, because it's also about the understanding, self-understanding of nations, history teaching and history in general. So to have changes in those fields is not easy, but they shouldn't be taken as an excuse for not doing it. Maybe very briefly, like political recommendations that have been formulated also by that, by the Committee on Culture and Education in the European Parliament, very general ones. I just take you through what should be done, is recognize historical memory as an elusive concept. It seems obvious for those that deal professionally with it, but it's not necessarily so for historians. Secondly, raise awareness for the difficulties of historical memory in general, but especially a trans-European historical memory. It's not an easy thing to be done. Certainly acknowledge that there is something to build more efforts in these fields on, like the Europe for Citizens program. But also admitting that there are shortcomings when it comes to current EU memory policies and that more needs to be done. That we should go for a European culture of remembering as a first step to form a remembrance culture. So we have to think first about process, how methodology, rather than talking about content at the political level. We have to acknowledge the central role of education and we should make strategic use of the European means, financial and otherwise to support national policies because most of that has to take place at the national level, but again, European funding programs and initiatives can help to do that. That takes me to my last slide, some conclusions. What I have witnessed now in the eight years in the European Parliament responsible for culture and education policies and being particularly interested in remembrance policies is that there is still a huge gulf between history, academic history and politics. The sense of that the discourses are not at all compatible and that it's often very hard to mediate between these two areas. Secondly, what I call the aspiration what we want to achieve, very noble, very ambitious is often in conflict with the reality which shows that still at national level some 95% of history textbooks are on explicitly on national history. So it seems we are talking at that level and still reality is somewhat there and even attempts for B national history textbook, they are really still happening at a very low level. So again, more needs to happen in reality. I don't think we are lacking ambitious ideas but to put that into practice is the real challenge. We have what I mentioned before, these competing memory frames in Europe, they still need further putting together. We have this focus on teleology and reductionism that needs to be overcome. And of course we have this ever present conflict between the European and the national level with member states being particularly keen not to have too much Europe in how they have to approach history. And I think finally also however that maybe sometimes at the political level there are certain misconceptions. First, about European historical memory. It's really the idea we can agree on one element that all Europeans can believe in or find awful and that's really a strong misconception. I'm deeply convinced that doesn't work but another misconception is I think even more generally about European citizenship. The idea of we need citizens that think the same way while I think it should be about citizens that manage to think about the same problems or to put it in a picture. We can have our national identities, forms of remembering the past but nothing keeps us from seeing them also through a European lens. On that note, thank you for your attention. Hello everybody. Thanks Marcus for this. I'm going to use it because as you heard I'm a little bit ill so I want everyone to be able to hear me. As I was saying, thank you Marcus for this great presentation and I think quite critical, yeah. So in a way I think your presentation is more from the politics level and I will be more grassroots level so I hope the two will have an interesting dialogue and I will try to be short because I want I'm even more interested in what you have to say in terms of being practitioners of memory than I being a scholar so it's in a way not that interesting. And also I must to state that I was not last year at the Brussels meeting and I heard that some data were collected and presented so I'm very much interested by that and I will try to bring some data into the discussion. Maybe not that statistic but more ethnographic ones I think it's also something we need to value at some point. So I will start by acknowledging that memory is indeed a European value. I will refer to only one study as an introduction in 2014 in a large survey study called Memory to Come more than 30,000 young people aged between 16 and 29 coming from more than 30 different countries mostly from the European Union were questioned about their attitudes to memory and the future in a way this culture of remembering you were referring to and 90% of them declared that knowing the history of the Second World War makes it possible to avoid the error of the past prevent it from happening again. They also agreed with the statements that knowing this history allowed them to learn to respect those who are different from us and help the victims and among the respondents, 83% say the third concentration campsite should be preserved and the main reason given for this was the need to avoid it happening again and conversely they rejected the proposition that is it the past? We have to put it behind us and forget. In the same way comments by ordinary European citizens are conconduct with this whether they are collected from memorial sites, museums or doing interviews as I did and some colleagues did with ordinary people asking them what do they think about the past? What do they think about history? And so I think the data are clear there. We can say that memory is in a European value and that the culture of remembering you were speaking of does exist. So this is the first things that can be acknowledged but as important as it may be this fact does not tell us anything about the actual capacity of memory policy to transmit and promote values being the one of memory. Because the reason why memory became a European value is because we think speaking about the past can promote European democratic values such as dialogues, coexistence, tolerance, democracy. And this relation between these values and the value of memory are not that clear from grassroots data. And even more I will say that today evolution of European politics may challenge the ideas that memory are really linked to these democratic values. Despite the active European memory policies at the transnational level or at the national level for the last 20 years we see the rays of aid crimes, populism, discrimination in most of contemporary European societies. And this for us to look more closely into how these memory policies actually work and how we can improve them. I will start by telling you the story of a memory exhibition. So we may all agree that first world war may be one of the major historical European events. And between 2014 and 2018 the centenary of the Great War gave birth to a large number of commemoration, exhibition, memory initiative and so on. In the European Union most of the exhibitions tried to present the event as a European event and try to give views of the other part of the enemies. Not only for example the exhibition in France did not present only the French point of view but really were willing to include the other point of view the German ones of course and more broadly other European countries.  Yeah and maybe it was supported by the European Parliament I don't know. It's aimed at telling the story of the war from an everyday life perspective and at transforming visitors through emotions. The curators based themselves on the ideas that when confronting with the impact of war on victims visitors could identify themselves with the victims and then reject wars and conflicts for today and for the future. Through the exhibition is promoters wanted to reinforce citizen commitment to peace and in doing so their addition to the European project. The exhibition was visited by almost 200,000 visitors. And a group of Belgian researchers some colleagues and friends decided to study the impact of this exhibition actually had on visitors. Visitors were asked to express their opinions on a certain number of criteria when they entered and left the museum. These measures are traditionally used in psychosocial analysis trying to quantify pacific sentiments in social psychology. And the results were very clear. As they left the exhibition the visitor demonstrated decreased support for pacifism and an increased one in nationalistic stereotypes. In other words most of them have gained determination to fight the Germans. Instead of pacifism and European coexistence intended the exhibition focus on both raw emotions and figures of victim provoked a defensive reaction and a form of desire for vengeance against the other here mainly the German. It's Belgium and German but it can work on any other topics of course. Even if empirical studies of social appropriations of memory policies like this one are still very rare the few existing ones raise important questions about how to move forward as long as European memory policies are concerned. And in my opinion if I can participate in this data issue discussion I will call the European Commission and the European Parliament to order more in-depth study of the social appropriations of remembrance policy and initiatives by ordinary citizens from rejections to support. And by saying that I don't say we must judge this citizen, we just must look into depth how is it, what's it do with the past, what's it do with all these narratives that we are giving them to work with. For the sake of today round table and based on the few existing studies several dimensions may already be taken into consideration in my opinion. The first one would be and I agree with you refer to this point. If memory has become a European democratic value it is however impossible to know for sure and even more to control what kind of values and political stance are induced by memory. For example all the studies of what is called in scientific literature historical analogies shows that this very same fact can be interpreted and given political meaning very different depending on who deals with it. And now I think so I'm not a politician so I can say it. For example the very diverse reaction mobilization of the Holocaust European memory in regards of the migrant crisis is a very good example of that. I'm sure several of you work on teaching human rights through Holocaust history. What does it mean? Which kind of human rights? How does you make sense today based on Holocaust? Where does it start? Where does it end? And this you can not really know it before you do it and before you interact with people through this issue of Holocaust memory in the perspective of human rights. Moreover the few studies that exist show that it is easier to reinforce norms in groups that are already predisposed to them that to convince people were generally intolerant and simply indifferent. In this way we could say that rather than transmitting values memory policy first of all actualize values which pre-exist in people's minds no matter how diverse they are. And this is the idea of risk you refer to. It may seem paradoxical but it is important to acknowledge that to be efficient an active memory policy have to take the risk of misunderstandings and for this reason should not be too deductical in order to avoid to be counterproductive. Even more some studies conducted in Sweden and France show that if you want to use Holocaust memory for example to change people from a far right opinion it may have counterproductive results. It may reinforce their adhesions to racism, antisemitism, hate of the other and so. The second point I want to bring into the discussion today and I think it's the main aspect to take into consideration for moving forward with this issue is that if memory are about the past and are for the future they always take place through interactions in the present. Memory is indeed appropriated through social interactions rejections or support, recognition or interpretation. Also they are faced with the past both the promoters and targets of the European memory policy must first experience things, school textbooks, exhibitions, memorials or extensions between students and teacher, between state or union representative and citizen, between NGO and people and so forth. And these interactions are going to play a huge role on the way this memory content is going to be interpreted and make sense. In such interactions, memorial messages by nature distorted because it is always embedded in social relations which include not only cultural dimensions but economic inequalities, symbolic domination of gender issues, any kind of poor relations that will give meaning to memory and in my opinion a large field I'm one of the creators of the Memory Studies International Association so I know what I'm speaking about but even in scientific literature all these dimensions are often left aside and we only focus about culture but culture in a way doesn't exist separated from all these embeddedness of social interactions. And I will take one example linked to the issue of teachers. So as you said the January 27 days and European day of commemoration of the Holocaust and preventing genocide and mass crimes and in France for example you have an official document by the Ministry of Education for the teacher to say you need to do something to celebrate it you need to do something with it in class but they don't. It's not because they don't care about the Holocaust or they don't care about raising good citizens for the future, of course they do there are teachers, any teachers do it's why there are teachers but they just don't do because it doesn't fit with the culture of education in France everything about education is about evaluation, rates classification between students going in the good track and not the bad track and so this is not at all in the culture of the teachers so I think this issue of putting everything on the teacher is something that must be taken very seriously in terms also on professional culture of each of the national teaching education and if you stay at the issue of at the level of the school systems every fieldwork studies show that when you teach history when you teach memory of course you are teaching memory but this teaching is always taken into the way you have relationship between students and teachers between students themselves and again the differences between students, the inequalities between students, the power relations between students and the rules that each of the students are playing in the class so this unconscious can give memory policies great strength for example when a student wants to fulfill the expectation of the teacher or of this family identifies with an eyewitness account of history and finds fulfillment in this role that brings together academic, civic and moral validation but the prolific narration of background noise that is normal in any social relation can also mean that the message in spite of its clear strengths will not be heard or that it will provoke hostility so the importance of this socially embedded dimensions of memory policy impact and appropriations call for a displacement of the center of attention in my opinion it may not be efficient to only focus on reference points or contents, topics or even artifacts of European memory policies as it has mainly been the case until now it is necessary to pay at least equal attention to social situation into which transmission is made to take place and also to the identity and legitimacy of the agents of this transmission this is maybe the most important thing and if I come back to teachers I don't know in European society where schools do not play their role anymore in terms of fighting in economic inequalities promoting social justice maybe teachers may not be the best actors for answering an active and efficient transmission of memory and democratic values I'm not saying that, I'm just raising a question I think it must be taken seriously and also in terms of legitimacy you refer to legitimacy in your presentation and your rights it's something crucial but there is kind of paradox because the European Union must want to use memory policies and she's right to do that as a way to foster its legitimacy but the lack of its legitimacy is also a way to bring negative dimension to this memory transmission so you have to navigate between these two so maybe one of the things we could think of all together is try to think which best actors of memory transmission has to be picked in terms of legitimacy also representativeness and I will take a last example in which way taking seriously the social embeddedness of memory policies may be the main challenge for European memory policies today for a long time now Europe has developed holiday camps that bring together adolescents from countries whose memories are conflicting or were conflicting starting a long time ago with France and Germany to help them overcome all style memories and of course all of us we would like to believe all societies could be step by step one over to peace and tolerance by this contact between presumed enemies but again sociological studies show that it's more complicated these young people are not official representatives of their national or community groups they are also members of social groups possibly the recipients of their parents' political allegiances and above all individuals who take either sides of conflicts or friendship in their interactions with others what is created within the safe space of the camps or programs is not easily transposed into a society that is deeply divided or belligerent or again unequal in terms of economic situations friendship constructed in conditions of relative equality are straightened by the everyday experience of inequality and differences and sociologists have shown that the criteria for equality are not always satisfied so equality found in a combined curriculum or the opulence of a holiday camp cannot be guaranteed when they return to their real life worse still the contact itself between different social groups could end up reinforcing logics of social distinction, stereotypes and detachment which happen for example if the teacher or other authority figure imposes a meeting between individuals belonging to unequal groups or ensuring that these inequalities do not determine perceptions or are not expressed with contempt which is not easy to do of course the transmission of the violent past in which victims and culprits both feature can reinforce sometimes the assigned community identities that it is supposed to overcome so to conclude I will say that taking stock of European memory policy today pices by taking seriously the complexity of the social appropriation and that it is important to prevent the danger of disconnecting the status of memory as European value from its effectiveness as a tool for promoting tolerance inclusiveness, equality and emancipation thank you thank you Marcos if you want to ask some questions to our speakers now is the moment Bruno for his two presentations it was food for thought I had two comments on your presentation Marcos it was really useful thank you very much once again your proposal to renounce to the notion of historical truth what we all do in these rooms is to provide a multi perspective history of course however it doesn't mean to deny the wall of historical truth there is a culture of remembrance which there is a culture of remembrance in France or in Belgium and there is one historical truth based on the work of the historians the genocide of the Armenians just one example I mean we cannot opposite the two notions and for me it means something the notion of historical truth it's not something coming from one perspective this is based on the work of the international historian on a few topics there is an historical truth about the Holocaust about the crime of the Stalinists about the genocide of the Armenians second point the initiative of the European Parliament you have indicated two reasons especially the one related to the declaration of revival by the declaration of the recognition of 23rd of August what we all do in this room once again is to build up the common houses what did the European Parliament on this day is just to divide the European nations and the groups of experts my daily work is to repair and I really would like to stress this point what happened during this day because there is no opposition to work on the Stalinist crimes and to work on the Holocaust and by making an equalization it did not help in both issues they just fed the gap between European Eastern countries and Western countries and the second lead us this equalization in a sense lead us unfortunately to a second not accurate initiative which was a very fantastic project of the European history because it leads to the same interpretation as well equalizations and nothing to do with the singularity of the Holocaust so just to stress that the European Parliament do a fantastic job but he has to evaluate sometimes his own initiative should I yeah no just saying I mean I absolutely agree on your second point what has happened is in many cases rather reinforcing the problem than solving it and I have also to say it's well how to put it I think it was a bit of an alibi measure too saying look rather than trying really to sit together have a critical discussion you know you get your day we have hours and then everyone is happy the box is ticked now I'm a bit exaggerating maybe but they don't see the consequences that might produce and this is just a pseudo agreement because as I try to outline I still think as you say there are essentially two conflicting visions that have not been reconciled in defense of our politicians however I also should say it's not an easy task when you hear like discussions I mean I remember also in the cult comedy when we had these resolutions a few years ago essentially the one fraction say history is too important to leave it to politicians but then you had the other view history is too important to leave it to historians alone so that's already fundamentally in the sense of how to deal with it then we had discussions of the kind of yes those two totalitarian regimes were equally as bad no but Stalin was after all better than Hitler because he was fighting Hitler I mean sometimes discussions are taking place at that level so you can imagine how difficult it is to find a solution and I think then sometimes the easy way is taken out saying simply okay we leave it at that and then we are not talking about it anymore so I'm glad to take that back to Brussels and Strasbourg and also tell our politicians that there is this sense that what the parliament is doing is not necessarily helpful always. On the other point just quickly historical truth of course I didn't want to challenge as such that you know there are historical facts and things that has happened I see the problem more when politicians use the term historical truth because then it's usually meant in the sense of your argument has no value because mine is the dominant one so I meant more the use of historical truth at the political level because it's usually imposing a specific view on others not necessarily at the academic even as a historian I would also rather prefer to use the term historical facts than historical truth because truth has all these philosophical meanings and implies a little bit there cannot even be a different view on a certain fact but I take that point, thank you Thank you Thank you for the comment thank you for your reflections I would just want to propose that you really insist on historical established facts and judicial established facts because what is happening is really that in distorting what happened this is really I think a rock on which we could base what we do and you know just mentioning that okay historical truth might be a political term but here we are now speaking about what we are going to propose also to commission at the parliament so my proposal for discussion in the workshops would be are these rocks on which we can base our memory board then historically established facts and judicial established facts because for wars in then Yugoslavia between 1991 to 2001 the judicial established facts are very important of course there will be additional historical verification but I would urge that historically and judicial established facts are mentioned because this is so useful and generous I think so frequently being questioned lately Thank you I'm sorry this is our last question because we are not on time so we do want to do it I'm sorry because it's really late so we'll go on later thanks a lot for your intervention thanks a lot for being here let's close it I just wanted to mention also since I will need to leave earlier if there are any questions so please get in touch with me so to discuss or if anyone of you is in Brussels just as an off sorry sure by all means yes just my apologies that I will not be able to stay for much longer but please contact me I want to hear and I wish you all the best I think it's really the work you do that is the one I think that should ideally be done by many more people so a great thank you also on behalf of the Parliament Hi everybody do you hear me I've got a bit of a sore throat so I hope that the mic works my name is Gilles Pelayo I'm the head of the unit the team managing the Europe for Citizens Program at the Executive Agency Education, Audiovisual and Culture I'm here with Isabelle Eitinger whom probably many of you know just a bit of a disclaimer and a warning compared to the presentation that we've just had we're going to lose a bit of altitude I'm sorry so you know fasten your seat belt then you can try to do this because we're going to get much more operational for a moment just before the coffee break as the program indicates for a moment we're going to focus a bit on implementing the projects supported by the Europe for Citizens Program some kind of guidelines, questions and answer just a bit of presentation of the agency because you've been in contact with us, I mean you are beneficiaries so we are working on behalf of the European Commission together with our colleagues from the Commission Services on managing many programs some of them you know Erasmus Plus Creative Europe Media Culture, as far as the Europe for Citizens Program is concerned, every year our team deals with close to 2,000 applications and we select something like 300 of them that represents for remembrance and 300 around 1,500 and 2,000 organizations mobilizing every year on these issues of European remembrance it is it shows it evidences a lot of mobilization across the continent on those issues so I mean the topics that we have discussed today really are underpinned by a lot of actions and initiatives and projects all across the continent and I think it's quite comforting to note this if you are here in the room you are sort of survivors of the selection process so congratulations for this because the success rate is quite low from one perspective it's good because we select only the very best projects and thank you for this but on the other hand we know it has sometimes some detrimental effect of discouraging some local actors to apply the success rate improved this year to 17.17% from 10% in 2018 but still it remains quite low just to to enter into the matter your projects have been selected I mean basically that's quite because they correspond to the award criteria I will just still take some minutes to underline why you have been selected in terms of those award criteria because I think it's important to highlight the spirit in which we expect the projects to be implemented and some of the aspects resonate with what two distinguished professors underlined before so first and it's the most obvious let's say the projects that you presented to us are coherent with the program of objectives so we operate not in a legal vacuum but we have this legal basis the co-legislators, the political authorities determine the core objectives of the program and that's what we together need to implement and to respect and so that's the question of the values the reflection on the core European values which has liberty, democracy, the rule of law of peace to echoing what Marcus presented that's very much at the forefront of what we support through the Remembrance project particularly in this at this moment I would say of the history of the European Union then there is the purely Remembrance aspect I would say of keeping the memories alive on the causes and consequences of the European to titarian regimes in the plural and to commemorate the victims and then we have even more commemorative dimension of the days of European significance into which every year we update these dates and these moments last year in 2018 we had very good projects on the end of the First World War and its aftermath this year for instance we had lots of projects on the end of the Spanish Civil War the beginning of the Second World War there are always let's say good occasions to focus attention and studies and actions on different moments at a more concrete level obviously we have selected your projects and to be very pedestrian because of their appropriate activity plan but beyond technicalities I think it's important to come back on the issue of the nature of our program Europe for Citizens and again that resonates with what has been said with the question of legitimacy let's say the remembrance strand is within the Europe for Citizens program because primarily it's a question of a political question of citizenship of creating European demos let's say through partly through remembrance so the activity plan of the projects we support provide a way to empower citizens to mobilize civil society to bring discussion on Europe it's not a kind of unique way of looking at Europe that we promote but bringing at the local level and let the voices of citizens be expressed and be heard by the institutions so that's a very important component of what we support and so I encourage you to pay particular attention to this aspect in implementing your project of course we look at the expectation and dissemination of the results that's an important dimension of what we do the challenge is to reach a wider audience than those that's a concern immediately or those who go spontaneously towards this information it's particularly the case in the remembrance trends and the challenge that we see in the project we select or not is the way in which citizens that are not already immediately sensitive or who have access to those issues are enriched so let's say most probably your project has been selected thanks to the particular efforts you do in this respect and we really encourage you to continue in this direction we support projects with strong partnerships strong partnerships I don't mean only long lasting solid partnership with a coherence on objective but also we like projects with a variety and a richness of organizations involved which means civil society organizations can be museums in the case of the remembrance trends academic organization in our experience the best projects are those mixing this diversity of approaches in order to best contribute to a citizen's appropriation of those issues and then there's the question of the European outreach one workshop will work on the European dimension and that's that's a big topic in itself there are many ways for a project to be European let's say some very local projects are selected because they demonstrate well that they have a European relevance some projects are let's say European because they deal with an issue that's obviously transnational let's say or they have a variety and a great number of partners at the European level I'm quite curious to see what the workshop on the European dimension will come up with it by the way it's Isabel moderating that workshop so what I just wanted to insist on those aspects to encourage you as beneficiaries of the program so most of you in this room to build on those strengths in your projects then some let's say even more concrete recommendations so to speak tips and tricks for a successful project implementation from start to finish I mean you have passed the first stage of project implementation as part of the remembrance trend but after selection what makes for a successful project implementation first of all I would like to acknowledge and salute so to speak your commitment because we are well aware in the difficulties and challenges that you face everyday in the implementation of your activities the topics that you are dealing with and the public you want to reach make it difficult it's a kind of permanent effort about which we are well aware in some countries even those are very politically charged sensitive issues almost every country by the way I don't have in mind of any EU countries in the western Balkans where dealing with remembrance and memory issues wouldn't be sensitive per se so I just wanted to stress this so we try to show understanding about this we mentioned the issue of education the importance of education the difficulties of education has been mentioned before many of your project aim at involving the younger generation of course for remembrance it's a natural target to to engage the young generation and we know that's a tough order the young people are not necessarily easy to engage outside the classroom you showed us how even in the classroom doing it correctly is difficult but still we do support your efforts at engaging the young generation in fine if I may say and very very concretely before the coffee break what do we expect from you in terms of the implementation of the project it sounds a bit kind of basic but first I would stress the need to implement the project that described in the project application sorry for underlining it even if of course we totally are open to changes we know that the projects need to adapt circumstances change sometimes partners drop out the name of the game is just to keep us posted as much as possible in advance we are generally very understanding as an executive agency provided that we are told in advance but anticipation and permanent information is really the name of the game to avoid problems at the final report stage generally speaking of course all your obligations are described in the contract general conditions but never hesitate to come back to us if you have a doubt in implementing those who are we reckon sometimes in obscure legalistic which we are used to to answering questions on how to best implement the contract provision the very simplified forms of financing that we have for the action grants and also for the operating grant by the way make it generally easy the budget aspects one point however is that basically our benchmark is the number of participants to events and where they come from we do not need at the final report stage to have this evidence of how many people came from where etc but just in case of potential follow up controls exposed audits etc all those evidences should be very carefully kept and at the ready in case we need it I mention this because you know it is our experience of the sort of pathology of project implementation that that let's say leads me to stress this dimension and we absolutely want to prevent any problem does the question of the dissemination to close acknowledging the support of the European Union etc ensuring the visibility of your project and of the EU support is important for the sustainability of the program also it's important that this program and particularly its remembrance trend who is limited in size and very precious to many of you is visibly making a kind of difference on the ground because in terms of you know our political masters in the council in the member states in the European Parliament they need to see that that the European programs are making a difference on the ground and that the EU support is at knowledge I say this as always I'm not marketing a product I'm not a salesman for coca-cola or a two space company I don't have any interest in having publicity I think it's just a question of mutual sustainability if our program is well visible then it will continue and might even grow beneficial for both of us so to speak in terms of contact and visibility by the way it's always of good practice and I know that a lot of you do it already to liaise as appropriate with the contact points of our program I trust and I believe that you've been in touch with our national contact points and also with the representations of the European institutions on the ground where you operate from the commission or the European parliament it's good to have this this connection the representation offices of the parliament of the commission have a more political role in the EU member states or the EU delegations in the western Balkans and so it's good also for the visibility I've just mentioned that they be in the loop reporting is finally is an important dimension of your work it's important not only for the very concrete objective of releasing final payments etc for us it's a very important input not only to make sure that the projects we support have been implemented according to plan but it's also food for thought for the design of the program in the future so the recommendation I would make the final recommendation would be to do it and prepare it as the project goes and to really document the whole life of the project we welcome all the photos, all the testimonies everything that can make it as concrete as possible to us obviously we as much as we can participate in events of the projects we support but we absolutely cannot be everywhere and at all the events of our projects we've got too many every year and we are too few our team is only 20% for hundreds of projects every year so in a nutshell that was it I am at your disposal now and today together with Issa Ben to answer any query you would have on the actual implementation of the projects and again congratulations for having made it through the selection and my best wishes for a sound and a successful implementation of the projects any questions? you are at your disposal in any case if you have any ah there and then madame I'm speaking on behalf of the Centre Européen Robert Schumann Tichazelle and on Reynet the network for education and training the question I'm asking today is the future of the program how it will be shaped and designed and especially the remembrance strand and the network strand maybe we take a little question hello we have a project women about peace and I think when you talk about the good for thought I would rather prefer more decentralized information also of the different projects this might be a good occasion in the workshops now but also in a kind of database for the future I think these thoughts are very important of course for the institutional level but also on the grassroots level to exchange experiences and different approaches as we heard also this morning of the importance of having really also this the embedded social interaction as you said for example and all these different levels and to develop further on also a presentation of the project where we can continue our research on the academic and also on the educational level as such this would be a great tool and I hope that in the workshops we really can use it also as a kind of exchange of our experiences from the grassroots level in order to learn from each other a little bit more thank you I think I will take the mic I think it works better than mine no? I think it's better Thanks dissemination of the results and networking absolutely a workshop like this has also a very useful powerful networking purpose on the results of the project we already have the database of the project available on the web by the way we have in the past couple of years also improved the content of what we put there in the sense that before we would put the summary of the project as you would submit them to us at the application stage and some of you might have noticed that now in the final report we ask more information to put on the website on impact, on actual implementation of the project because in a way what matters more than the operational plans is to put what's been done concretely from the project so that's what we upload now in our let's say projects database and I can even announce that now we will upgrade let's say the quality and the quantity of information that we will put out on the web because we will use the enhanced let's say functions of what we call valor the database designed by the education and culture for the dissemination of the project so we want to enrich the quantity and quality of information that we make available to everybody's use this will never replace that kind of direct personal contact in such events that we need to continue developing on the future of the program this is even possibly rather a question for our colleagues in the commission services in DG Home Affairs but still I think I can answer the question the proposal made by the commission and that has been taken up quite largely by the council and parliament on the legislative masters as far as the the financial programs are concerned is quite stable in the broad parameters of the program I mean Europe for citizens has been integrated as was mentioned yesterday by Marie into a broader program the citizen security rights and values program but the as it is now the the remembrance term let's say is totally preserved in the future program so what the future holds is in terms of the content for the moment is rather stable for the commitment let's say the continued commitment to work on these issues still unknown are the figures and the budget attached to this program it's anybody's guess what the leaders of the European Union will eventually decide on the amounts of the European budget discussions at this level of the leaders have already barely started the European Council last week and tough discussions will start in earnest I think at the December Council so maybe we'll know a bit more but for us obviously the size of the envelope is important because already our program can only devote something like 4 million euros per year to the remembrance which is a bit little compared to all the good quality projects that we receive so we can only hope that the envelope will be maintained the resolution adopted by the Parliament last month for all the discussions it's stirred up in terms of its content and very important discussions but to look at maybe very concretely can only support the commitment of the budgetary authority to maintain a sufficient budget for the remembrance trend the details the implementation details of the remembrance trend for the future that means as from 2021 on once and up until 2027 will be in the hands of the European Commission to come so here again it will be presumptuous on my side to say exactly this will change or not change because that will be in the hands of the next Commission we won't arrive on the 1st of November as initially planned but perhaps before the end of the year depending on the endorsement process through the European Parliament let's say just to summarize the basic parameters as provisionally adopted by Council and Parliament are quite stable but some unknowns on the budget and on the exact modus operandi depending on what the Commission decides because people do matter a given Commissioner with his own personality priorities etc can decide or not to change the way it is done I don't want to create let's say fears or anxieties but contrary to many accusations the European Union is not a bureaucracy in the sense that the political masters that come and go do have an important personal influence on the shape of many policies and many financial problems that was a long answer I'm sorry