The Political Identity of the European Union: Complement or Overcoming of National Identity?

The European Union finds itself in a paradoxical situation: The Lisbon
Treaty is supposed to provide it with new impetus and institutional
capacity for becoming a global power, however, confronted with current
events in world politics, the bloc seems to be more disunited than ever.
Regardless of a 60-year long process of integration, citizens still seem to
identify more with their nation-states than with the European Union, all
the more so under the auspices of the current economic crisis. For a long
time, analysts and politicians thought that a “permissive consensus”
among the citizens would allow the elites to push forward the integration
process step by step. However, since the rejection of the Constitutional
Treaty through the French and Dutch population, this no longer seems to
be the case. The paper explores the central themes of the debate around
a European identity, discusses the different propositions and concepts
put forward by intellectuals and academics, and examines their current
relevance. It scrutinizes the relation between national and European
identity, pointing out that the nation state and the European Union are
ultimately competitors for sovereignty and identity. Thus, a political
identity of the European Union can only grow if the member states
renounce more of their sovereignty.