Normative Conceptions of European Identity-A Synthetic Approach

The European project was aimed from the outset, alongside reconciliation (peace) and economic reconstruction (prosperity), at a degree of political integration too. Political integration has progressed modestly. Not everybody is convinced of its benefits. Besides, the notion of a European polity opens the question about its sources of cohesion. Those sources are more or less evident in the member states language, history, legal, political and religious traditions, for instance. They give, say, Latvia, Italy or Hungary a certain degree of unity a national identity. But what ought to be that source of cohesion or identity for the European Union (EU) considered as a whole? This paper analyses five normative conceptions about such European identity (EI) cultural, legal, economic, international and cosmopolitan and suggests that they are not mutually exclusive, but can be combined in a synthetic notion that promises to reflect in a more comprehensive and accurate way the sources of the minimal unity required to hold the EU polity together.