The Production of Cultural Heritage and the Europeanisation of Places

At the World’s Fair in Hannover, Germany, in 2000, the European Union had intended to present itself by means of an “exciting and lively style”. Accordingly, visitors were invited to participate in a “journey through time” at the “European pavilion”, which had been erected for just this purpose, displaying in seven show rooms the “unique history,” the “unprecedented diversity”, and the future destiny of a United Europe. Through select images of urban street life and various cultural icons, the first exhibit on “The 1950s” attempted to document the “beginning of a new era” after World War II, simultaneously narrating the “origin of the European Community.” In the second exhibit, the gradual formation of the European Union was reimagined via memory icons like the “Time Shuttle”, in which the high point of the millennium – the introduction of the common European currency, the EURO – was staged on a so called “Euro Disc”. The subsequent installations, titled “The Blue Planet”, “The Bridge” and “The Tunnel of Reflection”, were concerned with the “European” engagement with the themes of the World’s Fair: “Humanity, Nature, Technology.” In the last exhibit called “Here and Now”, by repeatedly addressing the recent past through sounds and images, European diversity was praised as a perspective for the future of the European Union. In its self-representation, European Union (EU)-Europe declared itself, promising to oversee the step-by-step creation of a multi-cultural society that would be on guard “against racism and xenophobia”. When leaving the “European pavilion” after the estimated 30-minute visit, visitors stepped out onto the “Robert Schuman Square” and the “European Boulevard” from where they could see the various pavilions of other European countries extending beyond. For Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner in charge of Education Local Europe

and Culture, this ensemble was most appropriate due to the symbolic arrangement in which the "European Pavilion" took center stage, indeed having been built at the "intersection of all cultures of Europe" -including both the memberstates as well as those applying for membership. Of course, many of the visitors as well as most of the journalists whom I inter-viewed did not partake in this message. For in comparison to the larger national pavilions, the EU contribution seemed rather modest and, in addition, according to one newspaper commentary, it merely accentuated the "dilemma of Europe's career professionals" (Berufseuropäer) and their difficulty in properly presenting their own supranational creations. The seemingly less than imaginative European "view" was "obviously" lacking "any kind of vision" (Schümer 2000b), just like the rest of the European Union.
This dissatisfaction with the content and design of the "European Pavilion" can be linked to the current lack of support for European institutions and the overall invocation of European unity. Such a critique, however, is primarily directed against the scarcely successful "cultural politics of European integration," which have been attempting to convince citizens about the legitimacy of "building Europe" since the 80s (Shore 2000). Indeed, the propagated historical understanding of the EU, the commonly deployed European symbols, and the readily implored European identity have -so it appears at first glance -encountered little acceptance, whether in the "European Pavilion" at the World's Fair in Hannover or in the daily lives of the citizens of Europe.

The Production of a European Cultural Heritage
Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to take a closer look at this phenomenon -specifically in the context of the World's Fair. At some distance from the "European pavilion", located among the various projects centered on the "Future of Work" in the "Global House", there was an interesting exhibit on the regional development policies of a small valley in Western Austria (Bregenzerwald). There, for quite some time, and through numerous initiatives, it is cultural heritage that is being discovered, cared for, and in many ways economically marketed. For example, a well-known local cheese had been chosen as the "leading product" (Leitprodukt) of the region. Here, the maintenance of the "cultural landscape" and the fostering of small local structures have been pushed on stage by regionally practiced identity politics. Local specialties are offered for sale on a European organized and interconnected "rural market place." It is this regionalization (or perhaps rather this localization) that is of special interest in a global context: as previously mentioned, it was also staged in the "Global House"-exhibit at the World's Fair -a process that may be described with the commonly used phrase "glocalization." At this point I need to add that such a "mobilization of cultural heritage" has first been made possible by ample EU assistance. And this is not a unique case scenario in Europe. One of the objectives of the European subsidy programs for local farming areas is -directly or indirectly -concerned with the main-tenance and further development of regional culture. In the context of the European Assistance Policy, whether it concerns foodstuffs, landscapes, product designs or culture -and the thereby invented cultural heritage -all is understood in a double sense as having potential value: Culturally produced differences are viewed as an opportunity for the economic development of disadvantaged areas. And, in addition, with the invention of key phrases like "unity in diversity" (McDonald 1996) and "Europe of regions" (Kockel 2002), the concept of culture itself has been discovered as an important resource for European identity politics (Johler 2002).
In this respect, the EU has become, at least for people living in the countryside of certain regions in Europe, an important "fact of life" involved in the current "production of identity." Inasmuch it is worthwhile not only to pursue the question of how cultural heritage is articulating Europe, it is above and beyond also important to focus on how the EU itself defines this European cultural heritage in its programs, how it utilizes it in its policies -and along with all that allows "Euro-Culture" (Wilson 1998) to become a reality in Europe on the local level. Or, in other words, at present, the diverse and observable mobilization of cultural heritage is strongest in the interaction between Europeanization and localization. For this interaction not only allocates new political leeway to both local and European protagonists. It has also set into motion a powerful process. The "European" is becoming increasingly "localized", and simultaneously, the "local" is clearly being "Europeanized". Thus to pursue these closely interwoven practices of (European) localization and (local) Europeanization ethnographically means not only to investigate -as in agricultural policy (Johler 2001b) -where EU-Europe is present, but above all where it is perceptible and visible by means of designation, symbols, and rituals.
But if the EU-Europe is in this sense already a reality, then it is also worthwhile to turn this "local Europe" into an ethnological topic. My main ethnographic example is Vienna and with it -at least in the European context -a large city. In this article, I try to show how an old and a new infrastructure of the European, including European projects and European festivals in Vienna, are stimulated by the concurrent processes of localization and Europeanization. And in addition, I would also like to demonstrate how the cultural heritage of Vienna is thus precisely defined, strategically utilized, and to some extent reformulated as European. Cities, however, as M. Estellie Smith declared, have barely been noticed by EU policymakers and even ethnological research has rather neglected the "urban entities in the European Community" up until now (Smith 1993;Chesire 1990). And yet it is the cities that are the agents of Europeanization and of cultural differentiation -and thereby also act as a pronounced and exerted mobilizer of cultural heritage.
The question included here thus aims at a special perspective. EU-Europe is, necessitated by the numerous sponsoring programs, present and perceptible, especially in the economically underdeveloped areas of Southern and Western Europe as well as in the rural agricultural regions of the continent. Thus it is not by chance that the majority of anthropological EU studies also concentrate on these zones (cf., e.g., Dracklé 1996;Ekman 1999;Giordano 1987;Gray 2000;Jurjus 1993;Martin 1993;Nadel-Klein 2002, Shutes 1993. In contrast, however, the "super regions" of Northern and Central Europe, and along with these the cities have been studied to a much lesser degree. But "European practice" can be experienced here, and, according to Donald Judt, it is here that the "great success stories" of Europe are being written (1996: 130).

A EU-European Space
A comparative study of European cities from this vantage point would be productive and could further verify the reality of a "local Europe" based on the ethnographic material thereby ascertained. Such an examination would also have to take into consideration those positions formulated, e.g., by the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. In a recent interview Baudrillard suggested that Europe had been turned into a "virtual reality", into an "archetype of simulation." This "simulated Europe", according to Baudrillard's conclusion, will indeed "exist", but no one "will be a part of it" (Der französische Soziologe Jean Baudrillard 1997).
On the level of public discourse, this assumption seems to be confirmed: The EU is often termed a travelling "citadel of tents" ("Zeltburg") or a "modern road show", lacking a recognizable center with "soul" and its buildings appear to many as "faceless" and anonymous. The EURObank, e.g., notes also consciously display only stylized "typical" constructions which do not exist within the reality of Europe, and the "Eurocrats" at once violently contested the fact that the "Pont du Gard" bridge in the south of France had served as a model for the 5-EURO note.
In some sense, EU-Europe is indeed "placeless," even when, as for instance in the EUadvertisement campaign "At Home in Europe", it attempts to emphasize belonging and concreteness, but with the settings quickly changing in pictures and words -in the course of the few pages of this advertisement brochure, the citizen becomes a car buyer in Spain, an apartment seeker in Italy or a corporation interested in women's issues in Denmark.
The message of such images is clear and often described: The European Union is an "unfinished construction site", always in a "continuous process", signaling "growth", "modernity", and "future". For the citizens, it does not convey a sense of "belonging", but rather means a constant "moving." And the term "Europe" or rather European symbols have been systematically deployed. The European stars against the blue background are mainly found on international travel buses and transportation companies active throughout Europe. In addition, Europe has not merely lent its name to the "Eurostar" -the train between London and Paris -and to the "Eurofighter", but also to the "Euro Airport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg", the "Eurogate" in Zurich, and the seemingly futuristic city district "Euralille" in France.
Such an understanding of the EU-Europe, as suggested by the described usage of the symbols of Europe, may confirm French anthropologist Marc Abélès' diagnosis of the EU: Europe has no center, it corresponds more to a method than a territory, and it has triggered above all identitybuilding processes of "deter-ritorialization" and "dehistorization" (Abélès 1996).
However, skepticism seems to me to be appropriate in relation to this diagnosis. "Schengenland" and "Euroland" have allowed national frontiers to largely disappear, however in the words of the Thomas M. Wilson (1998) "boundaries remain" in Europe -and these are directed toward the outside as well as the inside. And at present, the observable tendency towards localization or regionalization is according to this perspective to be regarded as an important result of the current reorganization of European space.
For although Europe has not been defined geographically and regards itself as being principally "open-minded" with regard to expansion, "Europeanization" has clearly contributed to a reordering of "territoriality and peoplehood" (Borneman & Fowler 1997: 487). EU-Europe, along with "Euroland" and "Schengenland" makes up a "European space", but in doing so it also simultaneously creates beyond this, at least according to the hypothesis contained in this essay, "European places" and "European localities". Thus, however, "virtual Europe" (Abélès 2000), a Europe that is more an "idea" than a "place" (Judt 1996: 19), mutates into a "real Europe", at least in the initial stages.
Thus the EU is in a catch-22 situation because there is a simple reason for its caution with regard to a representation of tangible places. Every presentation necessarily makes a selection and thus cannot do justice to European diversity. Simultaneously, however, the EU has long since become a tangible reality. Propagating leaders in December 2000, but in order to affix the signatures to this treaty in a ceremonial act at the "Sardian Palace" in February 2001, these leaders had to travel to Nice for a second time.
It is unnecessary to overrate this "symbolic reference to a specific place" (symbolische Ortsbezogenheit) of the EU. Its content has, however, already become a matter of popular discourse. For example, the journalist Dirk Schümer has recently discovered "The face of Europe" in European cities, in Rome, Aachen, Ausschwitz, Bukarest, Frankfurt, Den Haag, but also in Strasbourg and Brussels, "the merry swamp in which the bureaucrats wallow" . Where, then, does Europe "happen"?

Transit-Europe
As is the case with EURO notes, the European Union likes to employ bridges as signs of the European, since these do indeed symbolize identical goals. They unite what was hitherto separate, thus encouraging the process of growing closer together and increasing the mobility of both goods and people. Thus, since the 60s, there are many bridges (e.g. the "Europe Bridges" in Tyrol or near Strasbourg) which have "Europe" as part of their name, and it is also not by chance that the bridge that openened a few years ago linking Sweden and Denmark led to the birth of the European "Öresund Region", and thus to a new kind of "transnational metropolization" (Berg, Linde-Laursen & Löfgren 2000).
Orvar Löfgren has described this tangible bridge as a "moving metaphor", but many such "moving metaphors" can be found in present day "transit Europe": names of airports ("Euro Airport", "Eurogate"), the "Euro Squares" in front of railway stations, the "hotels de l'Europe" in cities, the names of large liners ("Europe") and international trains ("Eurostar" and "Euronight"), or the international haulage contractors that not only incorporate Europe into their name (e.g. "Eurotransport") but also print on their lorries icons in the form of a European blue color logo complete with a European star, which serve as unambiguous signs of a mobile Europe on European transit routes.
As "moving metaphors", they propagate the "new Europe", simultaneously exploiting the metaphoric meaning attributed to this Europe. They are "movable European places", just like the "places" that organize European mobility such as urban squares and hotels. It is through these -as the German historian Karl Schlögel has aptly noted -"the new Europe grows": "It grows on the routes used by the haulage contractors reconnecting Europe. New areas are being formed: areas of traffic and communication, networks of science and knowledge, an infrastructure of modern communication, commuter movements of labor migration, and branches and offices of international firms. People are on the move everywhere, gathering new experiences. They are the explorers of the new Europe, the pragmatists of European unity." As Schlögel goes on to say, the fast, everyday "histories of the new Europe" could be told through these places alongside those, because it is here that "thousands of Europrofessionals are determining the very sphere of European institutions and structures, the sphere of European traffic and communication and the sphere of working migration." They are also in motion, but their "place" is more stable and their "history" correspondingly slower (Schlögel 2002).
The Center of Europe: Brussels, Strasbourg or Suchowola?
Irrespective of specific geographical definitions, Europe has many "hearts": a small place in southern Belgium, the largely unknown small city of Cölbe in the German provincial state of Hessen, a farm in Lithuania or the Polish community of Suchowola. In the latter place, its few visitors are directed by means of many signs toward an acclaimed central locale. From an ethnographic point of view it would be worthwhile pursuing these extremely diverse symbolic markers of European geography in detail, but here it will suffice to point out one thing: the many "hearts" reveal the divergent and politically controversial designs of modern Europe. But apart from this quest for a geographical center, the cities and communities mentioned here lack what the political centers of the EU have in common: they hardly have any share in the "Transit-Europe". Both Strasbourg and Brussels are centers of surplus-European immigration. But it is these migrants, just as much as the officials and politicians of the EU, who are creating "the new Europe" by the way they carry out their everyday lives. And they also have something else in common. As "new Europeans", they are living in Brussels and Strasbourg in secluded colonies just like the presentday designers of the EU. Whoever wants to comprehend the institutional centers of the EU as "places" must observe immigrants and "Eurocrats" simultaneously and regard their varied places of work and residence as a common urban iconography of European politics. It is also necessary to perceive the connection of these new "European places" to the historic city centers of Brussels and Strasbourg in order to grasp the language of symbols and forms of the "new Europe". Astonishingly, here critics of architecture, journalists, tourists and field researchers agree in one respect: the structure of the European edifice is, as in the case of the political structure of the EU itself, to a large extent without face or vision.
It is exactly those "tours of inspection" by journalists in Brussels that reveal the same picture (Hénard 1999). Dirk Schümer, e.g., maintains that "the EU has left its mark here like in no other city on the continent, and no other city has suffered more from its mania for destruction" (Schümer 2000c). The high-rise buildings made of asbestos originating from founding times and the post-modern glass buildings erected in the meantime have left a "nowhere" surrounding the Round Pont Schuman, thus making Brussels into the ideal "capital of Europe" because it has become so average and hardly recognizable any more. "A clean sweep has been made here, in a shocking way. Europe is being built not on the foundations of its heritage but by destruction. Just look down. The smart Place Luxembourg has become the miserable remains of a once charming quarter which had to give way to Euro buildings" (Fritz-Vannahme 2000).
But what went wrong in the center of Brussels seems to have succeeded in Strasbourg. With the newly erected European Parliament in the "nowhere" at the edge of the city, a European "icon" has been constructed. According to the opinions of architects, Europe has thus finally received an architectonic "face" -and perhaps also a genuine "center" (Rautenberg 1999).

Euralille
Euralille, the newly constructed part of the northern French city of Lille, really does have European architecture -and also history. This began in 1984, when the French Prime Minister, at that time Pierre Mauroy, was able to push through the idea of building the Channel Tunnel at the summit conference of Fontainbleau. As advertising leaflets proudly proclaimed, by virtue of this construction the city was once again situated "at the intersection of European highspeed tracks between London, Paris, Brussels and Köln", thus having "100 million European consumers within a 300 km radius." Mauroy, who was, incidentally, a convinced European, seized this chance to have Euralille built as a modern center of the service industry alongside Lille, the old, economically run-down workers' city. With its 70 hectares of building land, Euralille is directly linked with the newly erected TGV railway station "Lille Europe" and, alongside schools, hotels and banks, consists primarily of the technology park "Eura-Technology" as well as a center of genetic re-search ("Eura-Santé"). These terms alone reveal the political aim of Euralille. The metamor-phosis of the city is seen in direct connection with the process of European unification. Here, the "European destiny of Lille", a much conjured up phrase, is also expressed by the fact that by 2004 Lille will be "the cultural capital of Europe" and thus -as has already been announced by the tourist advertising agency -"the Gateway to Europe".
Joined to the "Communauté Urbaine de Lille" and having been a member of the EU networks "Eurocities" since 1993, the city and region ("Euroflanders") in the "Europe of the Regions" have perceptibly gained political importance and therefore also influence on the organization of the EU. Praised as "one of the most striking urban landscapes in Europe", Euralille, nevertheless, is described as a simple survival strategy in the "new Europe": "More recently, a new spate of urban projects has emerged, sparked by the approaching deadline for the construction of Europe, in particular the opening of the single market. The logic and strategies of urban planning must now be adapted to fit in with a European context. As the notion of territory expands -whether in a political, geographic or economic sense -the traditional national hierarchies (state/region/ cities) have exploded only to be replaced by a reconstruction of space. Borders have become mobile, giving rise to new relationships, new complementaries, and new rivalries. Euroregions are being mapped out; Euro-cities are being drawn up. The newly defined face of Europe has impli-citly generated new distributions, new flows, and new networks where large cities, motors of deve-lopment, have become poles of magnetic attraction around which smaller or less-wealthy local areas tend to gravitate. At the heart of Europe, which is currently under construction, possessing the know-how required to join the ranks of the 'big cities' (or even the 'metropolis'), means concentrating on welcome facilities, accessibility, amenities, and environ-mental issues (the criteria of excellence); this has become a genuine 'object of desire' for a number of medium-sized cities in France and elsewhere. It has also become, for some, simply a matter of survival" (Kolhaas et al. 1996:13).
But it is just as interesting that the "European dimension" of this project, which is intended to promote Lille to the rank of one of the "European hub cities", is also reflected in the very architecture of Euralille itself. This regards itselfas does the EU -as not being completed but as directed with open-mindedness towards the future. Euralille is meant to embody "European modernity" and as a result, the architects did not establish any connection to the old city of Lille. The architect Rem Kolhaas countered the violent criticism that was expressed because of this with two arguments: Other attempts to introduce "modernity" into Europe (e.g. "Euro-Disney" in the vicinity of Paris) had been described as "cultural and contextual massacres". And he wanted to express his objection to exactly this criticism of "European modernity" in one sentence: "No ground against a non-place" (Kolhaas et al. 1996: 189-190).

"Local Europe" in Vienna
The possible discovery of a new type of European urbanism in non-place Euralille can be read as a consequence of "hyper modernity" (Augé 1988) and understood as a part of the powerful process of "deterritoralization" to which the "new Europe" contributes significantly. The architec-ture, history and intention of Euralille then correspond exactly to the "future orientated narratives" of the EU (Borneman & Fowler 1997: 492). And doubtlessly European identities could also result from this, oriented towards the future and bearing little relation to the past (Macdonald 1993).
But this interpretation needs to be supplemented: Orvar Löfgren has demanded, not only to see the processes of the "de-", but rather also those of the "re-" -and he is correct in this assessment with regard to Europe (Löfgren 1996). "Local Europe" can be interpreted as a "reterritorialization" and, in this context, the uses Using European Symbols: "Wien im Zeichen der EU". of cultural heritage can be seen as a "rehistoricization" -precisely as it is attempted by the creation of a "Europe museum" in Brussels. And even if it is still uncertain what should be exhibited under "European", the research director has nevertheless -perhaps naively it appears -perspectives for the near future: "In the next few years Euroland will experience the beginnings of a common history anyway which will then in turn employ more and more identity and togetherness as for example through the common peace policies in Kosovo or the unified reaction against Haider-Austria." It is still unclear whether or not the sanctions against "Haider-Austria" have contributed to a European identity or will even produce a "European Value Community". In any case, in Vienna the sanctions have indeed shown effects. Because even if the city never tires of upholding its own politics and demonstrating a critical distance to the new conservative-nationalistic government, its stance -and thereby its own narrative of an open, international, even European city -has nevertheless been put to question. "Whoever boycotts Vienna," so has been the complaint, "hits the heart of Europe". This geographic or rather cultural selfpositioning is not new. Here, however, the oftenclaimed "Middle of Europe" has achieved a new meaning with Austria's membership in the EU in 1995. And since then the European substance of Vienna has been re-worked in content matter in several ways. One wants to be "The bridge to the East" and "the door into the West" and the flag of Europe, which hangs on the Vienna City Hall, should not merely -as perhaps in other places -show the belonging to the EU, but it should also symbolize a particular openness in relation to the neighboring Eastern countries.
In the middle of the 90s, the re-working addressed therein was accompanied by a strong mobilization of the national "cultural heritage". That Vienna was befitted with a particular role as dominating capital city was also demonstrated in a "Festival for Europe", e.g., which was held on July 1, 1998 on the Viennese "Heroes Square" on the occasion of Austria's taking the chair of the EU (Schallenberg, Thun-Hohenstein 1999). There Vienna wanted -this is only cited here -to emphasize its new "function" as a European "Culture Capital" with an extensive cultural program. More important at this point is, however, that the President of Austria used this "Festival for Europe" to give a new interpretation of Austrian history. With its membership into the EU, Austria, "after several detours rife with victims, found its way back to its European calling". And the "Heroes' Square"the infamous place where, i.a., Adolf Hitler announced Austria's annexation to an enthusiastic crowd in 1938 -thereby gained a new, a European meaning. In the future, it will show that Austria has learned from its history.
That Beethoven was not only played at this "Festival for Europe" but also at the April 2000 opening of the "European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia" in Vienna -the only such EU-institution of its kind -corresponded to this European self-image. Nevertheless, what both events had in common was that the European positioning of Vienna was also founded on the cultural resources of the city's history. The director of the "European Monitoring Centre", Beate Winkler, e.g., saw herself in Vienna as being in the "right place": "Vienna is a very good place for the location -also due to the momentary political situation. We can only do this job well if we are as close as possible to the problems of the people. There are a lot of positive things in Vienna. Vienna has quite a large potential -also in regards to history. One can't forget that Vienna is the city of cultural dialogue. Vienna is the city of Sigmund Freudthe man who introduced a whole different perspective in coming to terms with xenophobia." This argument -which by the way was also advocated by the city of Vienna -still has another interesting angle: current EU-activities in Vienna were always legitimatized by EU representatives as well as Viennese politicians by invocation of a European destination derived from history -and this was the case even at such trivial events like the opening of a "Europe Garden" in Schönbrunn Palace or the planting of a ring of trees in the "Sigmund Freud Park", which was to symbolize Europe several years ago. Something else, however, can be observed in Vienna: A well-known Austrian author recent-ly compared the damage done by the new government to the European style of the country with the renovation of the "Café de l'Europe" located in the center of Vienna. Without getting into more detail here on the underlying metaphor, a brief explanation would be in order: the "Café de l'Europe", which opened its doors at the end of the 19 th century, also represented mobility in Vienna's city history. And at the end of World War II, it was the first sought location particularly by Jews fleeing from Hungary. Its name "Europe" -as an old coffee house visitor recently stated -therefore offered its guests a "program, vision and perspectives." And the re-opening of the "Café de l'Europe" in May 2000 was perceived -despite the unchanged political situation in Austria -as the confirmation for the notion that "Europe even now still begins, as always, in the middle of Vienna." "Europe is located in Vienna" has, howeverand this has already been implied -still another meaning. The "Café de l'Europe" belongs, along with the "Hotel Europe", the "Europe House" or the "Europe Square" to those wax-works of the European, which can be found in many cities and at the same time connects sediments of past European constructions. These histories of Europe were reconciled with the present EUand thereby likewise "re-worked" in substance: The "Europe Square" in Vienna, e.g., was given its name in 1958. It is located -like many of the like-named squares throughout Europedirectly in front of a large train station and as an important traffic intersection point it did not undergo any significant design changes for quite some time. When Austria joined the EU, it was initially distinguished by a monument designed by school children entitled "The Path to Europe". In the meantime, "Europe Square" has also become a architectural topic of the city. And in the future, it should -according to a prominent architectural duo contracted with its new design -"no longer smell of the Eastern Bloc" but instead show a modern, a "European ambiance".
A "European ambiance?" -the EU has directly supported several projects in Vienna for city renewal. The most important -and seemingly most prominent -targets the rehabilitation of a quarter marked by abandoned apartments and houses, burdened by heavy traffic and struck by strong ethnic ghettoism -the "Gürtel". The EU considers this largely successful revitalization as one of its "success stories" and has thereby -according to its own proud depiction -"created a noticeable sign post in Vienna" (Veigl 1999). On the other hand, the so-called "Gürtel night-walk" takes place every year in this quarter. In 2000, alongside numerous cultural events, the film Thank you Europe? could also be viewed. It is this decidedly Europe critical film, which largely disputes the EU in its justification of existence.

Contested "European places"
As Tony Judt has maintained, Europe exists from an ontological point of view (Judt 1996: 130). And in fact the many places of "local European places: The "Café de l'Europe" in Vienna.
Europe" bear witness to the presence of the EU. But these "European places" must at first be provided on site with symbolic meaning and charged with European content by means of ritual. As we have already seen, this is, however, a matter of continual political controversy among the public. A further example may serve to underline this. On the 40 th anniversary of the "Treaties of Rome", a strange scenario of European diplomacy took place in Vienna, about which Viennese residents were not informed until the following days by the media. In the Sigmund Freud Park in the heart of Vienna, diplomats of the EU member states planted a circle of trees typical of the various countries with a yew (as a typical EU-tree) in its center. Such planting of trees has been part of the EU's stock of rituals for years and was understood as it was intended in Vienna: The respective trees typical of each country were interpreted as signs of the propagated European "unity in diversity". The act itself was understood as a "symbol of growth of the EU". But the tree rondeau did not survive a year. In January 1998, an until then unknown group named "the underground" cut the trees down. In this way these people wanted to protest against existing manifestations of power which they particularly saw manifested in the introduction of the EURO and generally in militarism, and at the same time they wanted to draw attention to local problems with the Viennese tramway. In the meantime, the anniversary-trees have been replanted, although in the absence of any ambassadors. And a small board explains this "European place", which is hardly noticed any more (Johler 2000).

Agencies of Europeanization
The tree-rondeau in the Sigmund Freud Park together with the "European Garden" in Schönbrunn Palace belongs to the "European places" sponsored by the EU, which are part of a EU infrastructure. As in all other European capitals, the Information office of the European Parliament as well as the Delegation of the European Commission have been set up in a grand shopping mall in the center of Vienna. Not far off, there is the office of the only EU institution in Austria: the "European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia". The EU-Office of the City of Vienna is in the City Hall. At a significant distance from these, the EU has its "Objective 2" sponsoring offices in the problem areas in the city. All these institutions propagate the EU and are easily recognized in public by means of the EU flags and symbols.
But in Vienna, as in many other European cities, the use of the term "Europe", but also of European symbols, is not restricted to the EU. Thus in Vienna there is a bar called "Europe", a "Europe Hotel" and also a "Café de l'Europe". And in the direct vicinity of "Europe Square" typical European meals and drinks can be consumed in the recently opened "Europe Brewery" or electronic goods can be bought in the "Europafunk" shop. These few examples can be listed alongside with shopping centers named "Eurospar" or numerous other businesses that have Europe as part of their name ("Eurojobs", "Eurolingua", "Eurokredit", "Euromed"). In this terminology, "Europe" means the internationality and diversity of the goods offered, and the modernity of the goods and services rendered. In Austria, however, it also refers to the rather European places: The "Europa Cafe" in Nicosia. low prices. It would be worthwhile carrying out a comparative study of these "European places" of business life. But it is certain that these, as for example in the case of "Euro-Disney" (Korff 1994) or the "Europarks", contribute to the formulation of what is currently understood by "Europe" in Europe, possibly corresponding to EU propaganda but also differing from it.

Conclusion
The "new Europe" has made a noticeable contribution to the process of deterritorialization. But what Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson have formulated as the anthropological task is also valid here: "instead of stopping with the notion of deterritorialization […] we need to theorize how space is being reterritorialized in the contemporary world" (Gupta-Ferguson 1992). At present, this reterritoriali-zation can be observed in the creation of "European places". In doing so, however, -and this is an observation originating from Jonas Frykman -we note that EU-Europe not only defines "European places", but these in turn determine what Europe is or what is should be in the future. The ways in which this "belonging to Europe" (Frykman 2001) is constructed, the manner in which it is put into practice varies across the whole of Europe in the same way, as the concept of Europe is variable. Recently a Viennese EUpolitician made the proposition that there hardly existed a city, which could be as European as Vienna. I am not sure exactly what he meant by this but the idea in itself, in every superficiality of thought, is interesting and worthy of further comparative ethnological investigation.