THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY ALBERTO MARTINELLI University of Milan [email protected] Abstract: European identity is not only a scientifically interesting question, but also a politically important issue: in fact, sixty years after the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the European Union finds itself for the first time facing risks that threaten its own existence. The European Union is a limited and incomplete project because Europe’s economic integration has not been accompanied by a genuine supranational political union and greater cultural integration. The deficit of democratic representation and cultural integration is due to the fact that the community process is based only on economic rationality and not on a feeling of common belonging. In the current situa- tion in which the Union faces difficult challenges which threaten to undermine the future, it necessary to affirm the policy of interests with a policy of identity. In this essay, we will first concentrate on the concept of identity – that is on the nucleus of values and common institutions –; then we will discuss how the European identity has changed over time (also in relation to national identities) and what are the mecha- nisms that may favour its taking root in the current situation. The European project of political unification needs to be re-emphasized, finding the way to a European collec- tive identity, not contrasted with but alongside the different national identities, refer- ring to loyalty and shared commitment to a whole collection of cultural values: fun- damental human rights, civil liberties, democratic political institutions, rule of law, freedom of movement of people, goods and capital, social justice and non-violent res- olution of conflicts. Keywords: Europe, Identity, koinè, Cultural Integration, Political Unification. PREFACE Does a supranational economic and political entity such as the European Union possess a recognizable identity? And if this identity indeed does exist, what are its distinctive fea- tures? Has it changed over time? How does it differentiate it- self from the identities of other European citizens and in par- ticular from their national identity? This not only deals with scientifically interesting questions that are complex and con- troversial but also politically relevant because today, sixty years after the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the European Union finds itself for the first time facing risks that threaten its own existence. There is a strong need for Europeans to recog- nize themselves within a set of shared values, institutions, and common living standards that legitimize common institutions. First of all, the difference between concepts of collective identity and identification must be clarified. The concept of identification defines a set of individual attitudes of a cognitive ISSN 2283-7949 GLOCALISM: JOURNAL OF CULTURE, POLITICS AND INNOVATION 2017, 2, DOI: 10.12893/gjcpi.2017.2.11 Published online by “Globus et Locus” at www.glocalismjournal.net Some rights reserved 2 ALBERTO MARTINELLI nature – both emotional and evaluative – having to do with belonging to a community, the sharing of a common destiny and of consequent behaviours of loyalty, trust and solidarity. On the contrary, the concept of identity refers to an aggregat- ing and motivating nucleus of values, symbols and meanings that translate into norms of coexistence, political and social institutions as well as life practices (Smith 1991). Identification consists of subjective dispositions and people’s behaviours. Collective identity is a social fact connected to institutional re- alities. The identity of a group of people is the result of a ge- netic process of shared values that become symbolic-cultural factors of aggregation (mitopoiesis). It has to do with values and institutions codified within the democratic constitutions that also sometimes may not be immediately manifest. The two concepts are linked in the way that the contents of identity are at the basis of the process of identification. They delineate the borders between those who belong and those who do not be- long to the community, influencing others’ perception, while the way and degree in which the members of a community recognize them modifies the content itself. Another way to de- fine the two concepts is to distinguish between the subjects (who identifies you and with whom you identify with) and the objects or content of the identification (values, meanings, symbols, norms, institutions) that permit us to define who we are. A large part of empirical research on the European collec- tive identity are of the first type and examine whether, to what extent and for what reasons European citizens identify them- selves with the European Union as a community or with Eu- ropeans in general. But there are also contributions that, like this, examine the substance of European collective identity, deducing it from philosophical arguments (the inheritance from the Enlightenment), historical and sociological studies (on modernization), normative principles of constitutions, but also analysis of the content of the elite’s discourse, produced by popular culture and by both the traditional and digital mass media. In this essay we will first concentrate on the con- cept of identity as we have defined it, that is, on the nucleus of values and common institutions, then we will discuss how the European identity has changed over time (also in relation to national identities) and what are the mechanisms that may fa- vour its taking root in the current situation. The study of the European identity has become one of the most widespread fields of research from Fifth Framework Program for research and technological development in the ISSN 2283-7949 GLOCALISM: JOURNAL OF CULTURE, POLITICS AND INNOVATION 2017, 2, DOI: 10.12893/gjcpi.2017.2.11 Published online by “Globus et Locus” at www.glocalismjournal.net Some rights reserved THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY 3 EU, promoting an growing body of research on vastly differ- ing topics, from heritage and the cultural conflict to linguistic diversity, from national museums to artistic festivals, from Eu- ropean institutions to the European public sphere, from the relationship between media and citizenship to the interaction between national identity and European identity. This re- search has produced a multiplicity of publications, policy re- views, conferences and has provoked interesting debates of theoretical nature and methodology in the context of different disciplines (sociology, political science, social psychology, con- temporary history, political philosophy, comparative law), im- proving our knowledge of the phenomenon but leaving a se- ries questions unresolved. The question of European identity is, in fact, scientifically interesting, complex and controversial not only for the multi- plicity of interpretations which give rise to the phenomenon but also for three fundamental reasons: first of all, because through the centuries Europe has been an open and multiform world in which diverse cultural identities have crossed and compared themselves and the unifying ties: the reason for which many consider it more appropriate to speak in plural terms when speaking of European identity. Second, because, even as a result of this, only some of the constituent elements of a people’s collective identity are present in the case of Eu- ropean identity. It shows that neither a European demos nor a unique historical memory exists. From the moment it is not possible to transform the mythical and celebratory epic into an experience of shared events – the military victories of one are the defeats of others, Austerlitz is celebrated in Paris, Trafal- gar is celebrated in London. Neither a common language transfigured in value (as in the case of koinè Greek) nor a net- work of relationships of kinship, lineage and race (mixed mar- riages are still a minority, even though growing, and only a small percentage of European families are related across na- tional borders). Third, because European culture has become an integral part of the culture of modernity, progressively permeating the whole world and producing, even in a multi- plicity of different forms, a global modern condition: one which leads some scholars to think that today it is difficult, or even impossible, to identify a European specificity. Concerning the first objection, I note that the variety of cultural codes and the plurality of paths towards and through the modernity of European peoples does not prevent recogni- tion of the existence of certain cultural values and attitudes ISSN 2283-7949 GLOCALISM: JOURNAL OF CULTURE, POLITICS AND INNOVATION 2017, 2, DOI: 10.12893/gjcpi.2017.2.11 Published online by “Globus et Locus” at www.glocalismjournal.net Some rights reserved 4 ALBERTO MARTINELLI (distinctly European from a distant past) but are crystallized into a specific regulatory nucleus with the advent of moderni- ty, producing profound structural transformations and bold institutional innovation. The recognition of distinctive traits and common roots does not, however, mean that they consti- tute an almost unchanging primeval nucleus, and that the de- velopment of European culture has been a homogeneous and continuous process, without fractures and critical junctions (Rossi 2007). With regard to the second objection, it must be remem- bered that citizens of member countries of the European Un- ion share a common historical memory that is not only divisive – in the sense of belonging to the same civilization, character-