The European identity issue: what most determines the European "we feeling"?

Résumé du document

"You don't fall in love with a common market? (EU Commission President Jacques Delors in The European, 3 November 1994). Here emerges one of the most challenging issues for the European Union. The prevalence of market integration has created a political vacuum and the so-called "democratic deficit?, essentially for lack of a genuine identification from the European citizens with European stakes. Indeed, it would be easier to consider that the EU project has failed in generating support from the citizens of the member states and consequently, in establishing the democratic bases it lacks today. The reality is that the project of the "Founding Fathers? , as presented in the Schuman Declaration (9 May 1950) relied on a combination of functionalism and technocratism that largely explains the a-political trajectory of the European construction

Extraits

[...] So one thing was to presuppose the potentiality of a strong European identity; another was to stimulate it. In that perspective, analyses of 1992 Eurobarometer clearly revealed the weakness of the sentiment of identification to the EU: attachment to Europe against 51% of people who “never felt European) still appeared distanced by attachments to respectively the country the region and the village (Reif in Laffan: 99). Then, the new focus on feeling” opted in favour of the transposition of the spill over logic in which citizenship would be used as a Trojan horse. [...]

[...] Furthermore, the respondents according to whom NATO should enforce this policy combine it with a fairly strong European identity ( are proud of being European vs very” or at all proud”). Finally, the most significant cleavage seems to correspond to the respondents who think that national governments should take those decisions ( of very” or at proud against for NATO and for the which can be analysed as a cleavage between sovereignist and unilateralist arguments and multilateral, concerted conceptions of such issues as security-defense. [...]

[...] So because the European civic identity can be understood as the degree to which [people] feel that they are citizens of a European political system, whose rules, laws, and rights have an influence on their daily life [and that they] will identify with European integration as a political project whether they feel a sense of commonality (cultural, normative, philosophical, etc.) a priori with the other citizens of the European Union (Bruter: 1155), the only way of consolidating the European identity is to base it on inclusive principles of universality, democracy, civic responsibility. So the sentiment that the EU promotes an open democracy should strengthen the European identity. Nevertheless, political theorists like A. Ingram have stressed the fact that although this idea is intellectually appealing, today's strongest political link in Europe remains national. So a real European citizenship demands the implementation of a democratization process that would be more concrete than the promotion of empty and elitist principles (Ingram, 1996). [...]

[...] Founding act of the European Coal and Steel Community. The European Coal and Steel Community, first European Community was concretely achieved by the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 18 April 1951 and promoted economic integration as a lever of deeper integration. Today, these arguments have been adapted and strengthened by neo- functionalist theorists such as Moravcsik in Choice for Europe (1998). European elites were traumatized by the experience of the success of populist regimes in Germany and Italy before World War II. [...]

[...] - HAAS Ernst (1958), The Uniting of Europe: Political, social and economic forces 1950-1957. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press. - HABERMAS Jurgen (1991): Citizenship and national identities: some reflections on the Future of Europe. Paper presented at the university of Louvain, Belgium. - INGRAM Attracta (1996-11), “Constitutional Patriotism”, Philosophy and social criticism, Vol n.6, p.11-18. - LAFFAN Brigid, Politics of identity and political order” (1996), Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol - QUERMONNE Jean-Louis, Le système Politique de l'Union Européenne (Fifth edition). [...]