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Abstract
The purpose of this inquiry is to rethink the concept of European identity within the framework of the Declaration on European Identity and the Charter of European Identity. It will be argued that those documents employ the modernist notion of a centered, rational, stable, autonomous and unified self. However, this idea of the self leads to exclusion and essentialism. In this way, European identity cannot embrace the multiculturalism of European societies. Thus, it should be replaced by a more flexible, dynamic and shifting concept of identity.
Notes
1. “For example, many very different people are slotted into the category of woman and their differences across the other identity categories – race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, wellness, etc. are subsumed under the essence of a single identity category, gender, in an attempt to produce order and regularity” (St Pierre Citation2000, p. 481).
2. The Enlightenment project aspires “to define the essence of things, to get at that single, unique factor that enables one to identify something or someone and group it with others of its kind in various structures, thus producing, and even reinforcing, order out of randomness, accident and chaos” (St Pierre Citation2000, p. 480). The Enlightenment assumes the existence of a natural law that begins with reason.
3. “Foucault argues that the transcendental, constituting subject of the Cartesian tradition is inadequate to describe the condition of subjects in the contemporary world, subjects who are constituted by the powerful forces of modern life. But more importantly, he argues that the subject of modernity has been a means, if not the means, of the subjection of subjects that characterizes modernity, that is, that subjectification entails subjection” (Hekman Citation1991, p. 45).
4. Cogito ergo sum.
5. This argument can be compared with Kant's categorical imperative: “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become universal law” (Kant Citation1969, p. 18).
6. “For it is by the same consciousness it has of its present thoughts and actions, that it is self to itself now, and so will be the same self, as far as the same consciousness can extend to actions past or to come” (Locke Citation1975, p. 323).
7. However, it should be emphasized that the unconscious aspect of the self was not discovered until the twentieth century and Freud's theory.
8. “Derrida's grammatological analysis, however, illustrates that language works not because there is an identity between a sign and a thing, not because of presence, but because there is a difference, an absence (…) Thus, Derrida set about to critique structures that are held together by identity and presence using an analysis called deconstruction” (St Pierre Citation2000, p. 482).
9. “Originally coined to label an architectural movement that countered the modernist movement associated with Le Corbusier, deconstructing it with an eclectic usage of old and new styles involving pastiche, nostalgia and an awareness of citizens’ real needs, the term has developed numerous meanings within the context of art, theatre, film, literature, philosophy and sociology” (Gibbins Citation1989, p. 14).
10. “Every judge must choose or create a coherent theory of political morality that could account for the institutional materials to hand and present them as the outcome of principled decision-making. In carrying out this task individual judges could differ” (Douzinas et al. Citation1991, p. 57).
11. Postmodern law theory was shaped in the late 1980s.
12. “Although ‘post-structuralism’ is the term most commonly employed in the English-speaking world to refer to those philosophical currents which succeeded the enthusiasm for formalist and objectivist modes of thought which typified the early and mid 1960s in France, this designation cannot be understood in a strictly chronological sense” (Dews Citation1987, p. 1).
13. “For Lacan, the purpose of psychoanalysis is not to reveal a hidden psyche but to understand how the subject was languaged. In this way, psychoanalysis interrupts the rational, unified individual of humanism” (St Pierre Citation2000, p. 501).
14. Constantive describes what already exists. On the other hand, in a performative speech act the language performs the action it describes. It embraces promises, getting married, giving a gift, making a bet, and so on.
15. Bakhtin describes his ideas regarding the polyphonic novel in his Problems in Dostoevsky's Poetics.
16. “The dialogical self can be seen as a multiplicity of I positions or as possible selves. The difference, however, is that possible selves (e.g., what one would like to be or may be afraid of becoming) are assumed to constitute part of multifaced self-concept with one centralized I position, whereas the dialogical self has the character of a decentralized, polyphonic narrative with a multiplicity of I positions. This scene of dialogical relations, moreover, is intended to oppose the sharp self-nonself boundaries drawn by Western rationalistic thinking about the self” (Hermans et al. 1992, p. 30).
17. Pan-European Identity, www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Pan_European_Identity
18. It was established by the Nine Foreign Ministers on 14 December 1973 in Copenhagen.
19. The Declaration on European Identity, available at: www.ena.lu/declaration_european_identity_copenhagen_14_december_1973_020002278.html
20. This is contrary to the idea of the Declaration on the European Identity as a definition of the European identity “with the dynamic nature of the Community in mind” (see note 19)
21. The Stuttgart Solemn Declaration (1983), para. 1.4.3.
22. The Declaration on European Identity.
23. That is, the Treaty on European Union (1993).
24. The Treaty of Maastricht, Preamble, rec.9.
25. The Treaty of Maastricht, article 6 (3); the Constitutional Treaty, article I-5(1).
26. The Declaration on the European Identity.
27. “In a speech to the European Parliament on March 8th 1994, the poet Václav Havel, [former] President of the Czech Republic, indicated the need for a Charter of European Identity. The idea was taken up by Europa-Union Deutschland which at its 40th Congress held in Bremen on 5.11.94, decided to undertake work of producing such a Charter.” The draft of the Charter “was debated ( … ) at the 41st Congress of Europa-Union Deutschland in Lübeck, October 28th 1995, with only two votes against” (The Charter of European Identity, available at: www.eurit.it/eurplace/diba/citta/cartaci.html).
28. The Charter of European Identity.
29. The AER (Assembly of European Regions) General Assembly adopted Udine Declaration (“Identity: Regions as Building Blocks for Europe” ) in Udine (I) on 9 November 2007. The theme of the Assembly was called “Identity – Regions are the Building Blocks of Europe”.
30. The Udine Declaration, available at: www.aer.eu/news/2007/2007110902.html
31. This paradox is explained in the following articles: Ivic, S, 2010, “The Assembly of European Regions’ Udine Declaration: contradictory approaches to European and regional identities”, European Urban and Regional Studies, 17 (4), 443-446; and Ivic, S, 2009, “European Udine Declaration: poststructuralist reading”, Review of European Studies, 1 (2), 110–116.