Contemporary studies generally agree that collective memory represents an essential component of national identity. Nations are imagined communities and memory helps people to imagine they are part of the same nation. Memory has a great cohesive force. It binds people together by providing for a group cohesion and solidarity and a common sense of belonging. Conversely, memory excludes. It serves nationalism in defining fictitious boundaries between the common We-identiy and otherness, and is very often used to justify illiberal turns, conflicts and wars.  In today’s Europe, however, nations are not any longer the the only depository of memories. The power of memory in the identity creation has been recognized also by the EU in its effort to create a transnational common European memory. It is  transmitted through common symbols, historical narratives, memorials commemorations, and EU soft legislation, and forms a crucial feature of the European cultural integration.