Europe’s Fake ID

International Politics, Vol. 38, No. 2, June 2001, Miami (Ohio)

From Maastricht to Nice to the imminent introduction of the euro next year, Europe’s economic and political integration has boomed over the past decade. Yet one unifying element remains elusive: a common identity, a sense of shared cultural "we-ness" among European citizens. Even as eurocrats proceed blithely onward, drafting the institutional architecture of the European project, a series of popular votes — such as Ireland’s vote against EU expansion and Denmark’s rejection of the euro — reflect underlying unease with the pace and scope of EU integration, expansion, and various regional defense or economic arrangements. If Europe’s policy elites hope to overcome mistrust and opposition to further integration, they must move beyond mere commercial and material union and address the question of a common European cultural identity.

Peter van Ham, a senior research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations (also known as "Clingendael"), bravely tackles the fuzzy question of European culture in his article "Europe’s Postmodern Identity: A Critical Appraisal," appearing in a recent issue of International Politics, a quarterly journal with the self-described mandate of exploring "matters that affect the political condition of peoples and states regardless of geography or ideology." Building on French statesman Jean Monnet’s appraisal that "if we were beginning the European Community all over again, we should begin with culture," van Ham argues that a European cultural identity is a prerequisite for further political and social integration. However, the author believes that because of Europe’s significant cultural pluralism, any regional identity must be based on a politics of cultural openness, rather than on some homogenous or exclusive form of territorial identity.

Van Ham begins with the traditional sociological notions of Gemeinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (society). The former relates to an ethnic conception of a nation, including a common language as well as shared history and culture; the latter implies a sociopolitical entity rooted in neither geography nor ethnicity. In which category does Europe fall? How compatible is the progressive formation of a supranational "Brussels Man" identity with the persistence of local and national identities?

The author concludes that the European project need not mirror historical fluctuations between ethnic and civic conceptions of identity. Instead, the EU might fall in a middle ground where "the nation would allow scope for the maintenance of cultural and ethnic differences." This "marble cake" model — in which distinct local or national cultural identities are harmoniously embedded in a broader European identity — underscores the principle of devolution that already has emerged in various EU states, including federal or regional countries such as Belgium, Germany, and Spain, but also more unitarian states such as France, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Cultural identity, though linked to the past, remains a work in progress. Therefore, according to van Ham, European identity must be forward-looking, rooted in the future, using concrete European symbols that would engrave "Europeanness" in the EU’s daily landscape. The existence of a European flag and a European anthem, the physical use of the euro, the consolidation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy — these are all essential steps toward fostering awareness of and allegiance to a European identity.

Although rightly noting that cultural pluralism and European identity are not incompatible, van Ham stops short of offering a miraculous formula for European cultural identity. But perhaps no formula is required. A diffuse feeling of European identity already may be coalescing. While no European demos exists as such, the eu today displays a considerable constitutional apparatus, ranging from fundamental rights and freedoms to a specifically European model of society, which embodies and conveys numerous common norms and values. Consider the widespread European commitment to the abolition of the death penalty or the priority given to reforming — as opposed to abandoning — the traditional European welfare state.

Rather than fall back into some abstract or ethnically driven identity debate, the European Union must become more tangible and visible in the eyes of its constituents. Ongoing integration efforts must include representatives from European civil society in a more open and collective forum rather than the closed-door intergovernmental efforts that have taken place thus far. Otherwise, the grassroots reluctance to expand and deepen European integration could become the norm rather than the exception.