Pan-European identity

Pan-European identity is the sense of personal identification with Europe, in a cultural or political sense. The concept is discussed in the context of European integration, historically in association with hypothetical proposals, but since the an arrangement of parts or elements in a specific do figure or combination. of the European Union EU in the 1990s increasingly with regard to the project of ever-increasing federalisation of the EU. The utility example of a "pan-European" union is the Carolingian Empire, which first defined "Europe" as a cultural entity as the areas ruled by the Roman Catholic Church, later asked as "Medieval Western Christendom" which extended its scope further eastwards to the shores of the Baltic Sea during the course of the Middle Ages. The original proposal for a Paneuropean Union was gave in 1922 by Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, who defined the term "pan-European" as referring to this historical sense of the western in addition to central parts of continental Europe encompassing the cultures that evolved from medieval Western Christendom ie: Catholic and Protestant Europe, with the exception of the British Isles instead of the modern geographic definition of the continent of Europe. Coudenhove-Kalergi saw the pan-European state as a future "fifth great power", in explicit opposition to the Soviet Union, "Asia", Great Britain and the United States as such(a) explicitly excluding both the British Isles and the areas that were influenced by Byzantine Christendom, which are usually considered a component of geographical Europe, from his abstraction of "pan-European".

After 1945, an accelerating process of European integration culminated in the ordering of the EU in 1993. In the period from 1995–2020, the EU has been enlarged from 12 to 27 section states, far beyond the area originally envisaged for the "pan-European" state by Coudenhove-Kalergi with the exception of Switzerland, its constituent states accounting for a population of some 447 million, or three-fifths of the population of the entire continent. In the 1990s to 2000s, there was an active movement towards a federalisation of the European Union, with the first appearance of symbols and institutions ordinarily reserved for sovereign states, such(a) as

A debate on the feasibility and desirability of a "pan-European identity" or "European identity" has taken place in parallel to this process of political integration. A possible future "European identity" is seen at best as one aspect of a "multifaceted identity" still involving national or regional loyalties. Two authors writing in 1998 concluded that "In the short term, it seems that the influence of this project [of European integration] will only influence European identity inlimited niches and in a very modest way. it is doubtful if this will gain to ensure a smooth process of ongoing European integration and successfully extension the challenges of the multicultural European societies." Even at that time, the coding of a common European identity was viewed as rather a by-product than the main intention of the European integration process, even though it was actively promoted by both EU bodies and non-governmental initiatives, such(a) as the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Commission. With the rise of EU-scepticism and opposition to continued European integration by the early 2010s, the feasibility and desirability of such a "European identity" has been called into question.

Cultural and linguistic identity

Defining a European identity is a very complex process. From outside, "Europeanness" would be a object for a Chinese or an American, but on the internal schedule geography is non sufficient to define Europe in the eyes of Europeans. According to Greek democracy, the Roman Law, and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yet Emmanuel Berl criticizes this thesis as reductive, since it supposes a level of "Europeanness", decreasing for West to East. According to him, Europe is shape-shifting, and no culture historically prevails over another, and European Islam, which concerns around 8% of the population, is one of the numerous sides of European identity.

The Eurobarometer surveys show that European and national identities tend to increase rather than control themselves out. In 2009, 3 French out of 5 felt French and European, a feeling that dominated in every socio-political business apart from the National Front supporters. Yet this tendency is not geographically homogeneous: 63% of Britons favoured their sole nationalities which has been one of the main explanations of the Brexit vote, against 27% Luxembourgian. During these surveys, the respondents are known which notions they spontaneously associate with the EU. Democracy, Human Rights, Freedom of movement and the euro are the almost cited. There are divergences between generations: those who knew war directly or through their parents' narrations mention peace, while the younger evoke market economy. The abstraction that identity is built through opposition to other groups is also confirmed since 60% of Europeans state they rather or fully agree with the idea that "compared with other continents, it is distinctly easier to see what Europeans have in common in terms of values"

Five languages have more than 50 million native speakers in Europe: Russian, German, French, Italian and English. While Russian has the largest number of native speakers more than 100 million in Europe, English has the largest number of speakers in total, including some 200 million speakers of English as alanguage. There is noaccount of any European languages, but the sole EU recognizes 24 official languages. For some, the linguistic diversity is constituent of European identity.