LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS - The European Foundation Centre

7
Introduction
During the EFC’s 20th anniversary celebrations, held in Berlin in November
2009, William S White of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation said: ‘The
EFC is like a great airport or railroad switchyard: many people and ideas will
flow into it.’ While at the time we acknowledged this statement to be true, it
was not until we began compiling this book that we realised the wide range
of experiences that each person has had in that airport or railroad switchyard.
Let me explain.
This is the story of the first 20 years of the EFC – at least it is one version
of the story. We initially thought that assembling this publication and the
accompanying DVD would be a straightforward history‐telling exercise,
but we soon realised that each new interview conducted to inform our tale
revealed a different perspective on the same characters and events. So
many people have been involved in the establishment and organic growth
of the EFC that it seems there can be no single interpretation of how the last
two decades have unfolded.
It is also often true that great story‐tellers (of which we are surrounded
by many) never tell a tale twice in precisely the same way. So I invite you to
regard this book merely as the EFC’s folklore. No single person has witnessed
our organisation’s entire story, so our narrative inevitably consists
of individuals’ stories and the key moments that have lodged in their memory.
You are therefore holding a book which we believe is a representative
blend of the recollections, anecdotes and hard facts we have collected,
plus a few flights of fantasy for good measure.
Although there was a plethora of historical interpretations, there was
clearly also a common theme running through the interviews. More often
than not, people referred to the Centre as ‘our organisation’, which we felt
truly represents the sense of ownership and pride that the EFC’s founders,
members and staff feel for it. Rather than being a faceless organisation,