History of European Identity. Lecture II

1. History of European Identity. Lecture II Johan Wänström johan.wanstrom@liu.se

2. The theme for today’s lecture: Different processes of constructing Europeaness; historical processes and current trends • The question: How do identities, or experiments in identities, influence Europeaness? • Religion (Catholicism) • Nationalism/Integralism • Immigration

3. Holmes (Ch. 3): Identity has acquired a two-fold nature: • 1. Contingent on tradition and history, but also future-oriented and experimental. • 2. As ’experiments in identities’ are pursued, citizens of the EU have to interpret the nature of cultural affinity and difference in a increasingly complex and diversified Europe.

4. There’s an image of the 21st century European as being deeply rooted in strong national and local identities, predisposed not to move. • But Europe before and during the industrialization was characterized by extensive population movements, within Europe and to the New World. • Whathappened?

5. The Versailles Treaty of 1919 (peace treaty at the end of WW1) established the principle of national self-determination: People of the same nationality have the right to govern themselves, and one nationality should not have the power to govern another. • Holmes: This set radical experiments with cultural identities in motion, most destructively it was used by theorists of fascism and national socialism to formulate their ideas of collective belonging.

6. The wars of the 20th century and the Cold War stopped population movements and cemented the national identities of European peoples. • The Maastricht Treaty (1992), establishing the European Union, has opened up opportunities to once again ”experiment with identities”, to reconstruct Europeaness.

7. Some examples: 1. • Catholic social thought: A commitment to pluralist identities is fundamental. • The Principle ofSubsidiarity.

8. The Principle ofSubsidiarity. • An important general principle of European Union law: • ”Under the principle of subsidiarity, in areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, either at central level or at regional and local level, but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level.”

9. The Principle of Subsidiarity has its origin in Catholic social thought and is also part of Christian Democratic Ideology. • It is based on a philosophy and a view of humans as by nature social beings, and it emphasizes the importance of small and intermediate-sized communities or institutions. • This Catholic configuration of identity has had broad political appeal since the 1990s because of its ability to sustain pluralism and identity across an integrated Europe.

10. 2. Nationalism/Integralism. • A political movement gaining in strength since early 2000s. • Nations as organic unities. Highlights the importance of cultural affinity and local cultural traditions. • Embodies anti-immigration sentiments, anti-internationalism, euro-skepticism. • Holmes calls this political movement “Integralism” because of its potential to bring together diverse groups, and because it borrows elements from both left-wing and right-wing politics.

11. The paradoxical nature of European Integralism: While stressing the importance of national identities and while being euro-sceptical, it is at the same time an attempt at creating a Europeaness. • The example of Le Pen: Integralist (or nationalist) politicians all over Europe are modelling their ideologies on Le Pen’s French culturalism.

12. 3. Immigration and the ”duty to integrate”. • Governing migration has become a highly politicized issue in most European countries during the 2000s. • Migration could potentially serve as a foundation for the construction of new European identities.

13. But migration is mainly governed at the national level, and there is strong notion in all European countries that immigrants have ”a duty to integrate”. • Paradoxically, immigration paired with the duty to integrate works against the construction of a common European Identity.

14. We could complicate this picture however, by distinguishing between different types of migration (see Favell, Ch. 7): • Non-European migration. • West-European “Eurostars”. • East-West post-Enlargementmovers.