The Objectification of European Identity in the Treaties and in European Institutions’ Declarations

Abstract

In recent decades the concepts of “nation” and “territorial identity” have undergone a transformation in terms of politics and academia, with a shift from traditionally dominant ethno-cultural concepts to others of a political-civic nature. The former tend to define identity through objective elements (language, history, territory, culture, traditions, etc.) while the latter take a more subjective approach (basically, ‘the will to be’). In this paper, we delve into this transformation in the case of European identity. To this end, we propose a qualitative and evolutionary approach that uses texts promoted by the EU (declarations and treaties), in which identity plays a relevant role. We carry out a content analysis that singles out those elements that have come to objectify the European identity (and, as a contrast, we look at those elements bearing on the identity of the Member States). While we identify an advance in the political-civil conception as a reflection of the general trend, culturally-oriented objective elements still remain in 21st Century texts. This reflects the need to publicly present an identity in construction as something naturalised, and as part of a reality built through the ages. For Europe the concepts with greatest presence are “European identity” (more frequent in reports and brief declarations), “European culture” and “common European heritage” (more common in the treaties). These are concepts that, in some sense, reflect a given reality.