Transcript On the European Identity Conundrum

On the European Identity
Conundrum
Prof. dr Miodrag Jovanović
Political symbolism of currency
Money and collective identity
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The relationship between money and
collective identity is reciprocal - money and
identity can be both cause and effect
On the one hand, money is a purposeful
political tool in the construction of identities.
On the other hand, in order to function
properly, money requires some degree of
collective identity among its users.
Euro and European identity
Political Symbolism of Euro
‘It was inspired by the Greek letter epsilon, harking back to Classical
times and the cradle of European civilisation. The symbol also
refers to the first letter of the word “Europe”.’
‘On the front of the banknotes, windows and gateways symbolise
the European spirit of openness and co-operation. The 12 stars
of the European Union represent the dynamism and harmony
between European nations. To complement these designs, the
reverse of each banknote features a bridge. The bridges
symbolise the close co-operation and communication between
Europe and the rest of the world.’
European Central Bank
Trust in Euro
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One particular aspect that gives money a very special identity
dimension is the issue of trust - issuers of money always have been
challenged to offer a product that market participants would
actually trust
CNN poll: Asked if their country's economy would be in a better
position today had it not joined the euro, 42% of Germans and an
identical number of French agreed; just 33% agreed in Greece, 27%
in Ireland and 36% in Portugal
German ambivalence towards the single currency is highlighted by
another question that reveals 47% in favor of their country's
decision to join the euro. Similar support is seen in Spain, with
49%, Ireland with 54%, Italy with 52% and Portugal with 47%
Crisis and Identity
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The EU budgetary problem and the
European identity issue
Do the bailout measures demonstrate the
growing solidarity among the Member
States? Are they evidence of “an ever more
closer Union”?
Reality
“The Greek aid package is not a gift - it is a loan
on which they will pay interest. The loans to
Greece are to protect the financial stability of
Europe as a whole. This is crucial if we are to
prevent the recovery that has now at last got
under way from slowing right down and if we
want to see employment rise again.”
Olli Rehn, the European Commissioner for
Economic and Monetary Affairs
How can European identity be forged?
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Three conceptions of identitybuilding:
ethnocultural
civic
pluralistic
Ethnocultural conception
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The European identity-building analogous to the national
identity-building process (A. Smith)
It should proceed from “a logical starting-point”, and that is
“the concept of collective cultural identity”
Three distinct features of the identity-formation process:
to a sense of shared continuity on the part of successive
generations of a given unit of population;
to shared memories of earlier periods, events and
personages in the history of the unit; and
to the collective belief in a common destiny of that unit and
its culture
European ‘family of cultures’
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The European identity-formation project can be
located between simultaneous trends of
ethnonational revival and global cultural aspirations
What is the plausible source for strengthening this
European component of the emerging “multiple
identity” of inhabitants of European nation-states?
The European “family of cultures”, made up of a
pattern of certain historical traditions and cultural
heritages, such as Roman law, political democracy
and parliamentary institutions, Judeo-Christian
ethics, as well as cultural heritages like Renaissance
humanism, rationalism and empiricism, romanticism
and classicism.
Transforming ‘family of cultures’ into
European identity
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What are the plausible channels:
European mass tourism
Pan-Europan artistic manifestations
European mass media
European educational system
European identity formation - between the
“golden age” of European Christendom, and
“electronic patchwork” culture
Who is the significant ‘other’?
Civic conception
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Proceeds from the critic of the ethnocultural
conception
Community of fate vs. community of citizens
Civic conception “reflects both the actual
historical trajectory of the European nationstates and the fact that democratic
citizenship establishes an abstract, legally
mediated solidarity between strangers.”
(Habermas)
Demos v. ethnos
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“What unites a nation of citizens as opposed
to a Volksnation is not some primordial
substrate but rather an intersubjectively
shared context of possible understanding.”
Demos could be attached to its institutions
only if legal rules that legitimize those
institutions can be viewed as the end-result
of the deliberative politics of thorough public
debate and discussion.
Prerequisites of European demos
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At the European level, these circumstances concern:
the emergence of a European civil society; the
construction of a European-wide public sphere; and
the shaping of a political culture that can be shared
by all European citizens.
Forging European “constitutional patriotism”
(Verfassungspatriotismus) – a common loyalty to a
common constitutional order, irrespective of the
differences in language, ethnicity, or religion.
Multiple demoi and European identity
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Weiler differentiates between the two concepts of citizenship national and supranational, a European one; while the former
encompasses the realm of ethnocultural identification and
belonging, the latter encompasses the realm of law and
Enlightment, that is, civic ideals
multiple demoi – individuals simultaneously express both
organic-cultural identification with their nations and
membership to European supranational values that transcend
ethnocultural differences
In order to make European component ‘real’, Weiler proposes,
among other things, Direct European Taxation, which would
instill accountability, provoke citizen interest, become an
electoral issue par excellence, and would establish a duty
towards the polity
Pluralistic conception
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“An identity only grounded in constitutionally embedded
individual rights of Union citizenship would remain too thin to
support a process of further political integration and
expansion of these rights.” (Bauböck)
Hence, the task would be to “extend pluralism” in the EU
beyond the mere recognition of national identities on the
Member States level and to acknowledge the collective
identities of sub-national and transnational minorities,
through ‘group-differentiated’ right.
Constructing the EU this way would open it up “for territorial
enlargement and for the integration of immigrants coming
from outside.”
Transforming the nature of community
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The EU should be understood as the “community of
concern and engagement”, in which all its individual
and corporate members “associated by virtue of
differences from one another - share a concern over the
nature and the future of the polity and are engaged in
collectively shaping that future.” (Kostakopoulou)
The defining criterion for membership in such a
community is one’s active concern and willingness to
improve things that are of common European interest.
The focus is on negotiation, debate and persuasion –
hence, it is “disensus”, rather than consensus
(Habermas), that shapes this form of community
Towards more inclusive EU citizenship
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EU citizenship is not only a worthwhile project, but
also “the only project that could address the problem
of unjust exclusion” and therefore argues in favor of
“democratic citizenship” that goes beyond the
nation-state and is “inclusive and respectful of
‘difference’.”
Transforming the model of EU citizenship (to be
based on domicile); citizenship practices (more group
sensitive); taking democracy more seriously (more
citizens’ participation); promoting social justice at the
EU level (EU social rights)
Emergency, Identity and Democratization
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Schmitter argues that democratization of the EU should be
treated as an open-ended, “gradual and fitful process”,
rather than “as a momentous and concentrated event”
The latter strategy “may have worked relatively well when
some type of national emergency or founding moment
provided the context for deliberation and choice”, but it will
hardly be of any use in the EU case “where there is no
foreseeable emergency and the founding moment occurred
more than forty years ago.”
Is the budgetary crisis an ‘emergency’, which might trigger
forging of European identity and further democratization of
the EU?