Negotiating Serbia’s Europeanness. On The Formation and Appropriation of European Heritage Policy in Serbia

In 2003, the Council of Europe and the European Commission launched their “Regional Programme for Cultural and Natural Heritage in South East Europe”. The heritage programme distinguishes itself from other heritage programmes of the Council and the Commission in that it is presented as a means to reduce grounds for conflict. But despite this insistence on using heritage for the purpose of reconciliation and regional cooperation, over time a shift has taken place in which this ideological conception of heritage has become overshadowed by a more practical and bureaucratic one. In this article I aim to show that this shift resulted from negotiations that took place between policy formation and its implementation. I will demonstrate how, in the specific case of Serbia, during this process clashes emerged between local, national and European interests leading to the circumvention of national and local agenda’s reducing possibilities for reconciliation and regional cooperation.