The ‘Institutionally Constructed’ European Identity: Citizenship and Public Sphere Narrated by the Commission

Abstract

This paper develops from a series of studies conducted in the last years which have considered the construction of the European identity and of the European public space. The assumptions of the social constructivist approach to the study of the European integration process, which has recently led the research in this field, will constitute the theoretical background to be discussed in the first part of this paper. The main argument is that the EU is self-representing itself and its own identity referring explicitly to concepts such as the public sphere and the European citizenship, and to a broad set of policies in areas such as information and communication, culture, education etc. Particularly, the aim is to show how the definition of the EU's identity given by the European Commission has changed depending this on the different contexts faced by the integration process and by the functionality of the concept of identity in order to integrate more and better the European citizens. In the paper it will be argued that from a concept of identity based on imagined elements, as it emerged in the 1980s, the EU's has recently proposed a definition of EU's identity based on civic features and strictly linked to a wider concept of democracy.

Key Words:

• European identity
• public sphere
• constructivism
• public communication