Fundación Ideas para el progreso

The issues concerning the European identity left the front lines of the European agenda during the past years. The economic crisis has been monopolizing the entire political, social-economic and media scenery, due to the important financial problems of Euro zone.

However, these economic problems do not go by without leaving marks on the European Union, understood as joint political mechanism formed by 27 elements.

EU-ropean identity has always raised a great deal of contradictions, since politicians, academic or media haven´t got to a general agreement on whether there is such thing of EU-ropean identity and what is structures it, or should we dived between European identity and a European Union identity? These are questions that come up when bringing into discussion the topic of a European identity. There is no doubt that the process of constructing identity is a complex one, which involves not just our irrational wish of belonging.

In the context of the EU, this irrational wish of belonging to a certain community is related to a set of common values – individual freedom, human being dignity, rule of law, citizens’ active participation, social justice, peace, etc, even though some authors have doubts regarding to what extent these values represent a distinctive characteristic of the EU.Moreover, if they did, they are so general that is very difficult to put them on the bases of European identity construction process.”

Before 1989, the European community had been constructing its identity by opposing it to what was happening on the other side of the Berlin wall. The existence of two Europes, intrinsically different, provided consistence to the European integration process. It seemed easy to insert the collective mindset the opposition between “us” – developed democracies respectful with human rights and liberties and “them” - the totalitarian regimes, where such values as human rights and liberties, the rule of law, etc. were inexistent. The fall of the Berlin wall determined not only the fall of communism but also the collapse of the European identity’s substance. The opposite construction of “us” vs. “them” remained hollow, since all of the sudden “them” became “us”. The “us” representing the European citizen’s right has a divers meaning, enclosing a lot of benefits but also a lot of shortcomings, which, we like it or not, produce certain rejection from some member states to admit a unified European identity. For instance, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, insisted in the April EU summit, 2009 that not all east European economies are the same: “…saying that the situation is the same for all central and eastern European states, I don’t see that...you cannot compare the dire situation in Hungary with that of other countries.”

For that matter we seem to witness duplicity in the national representatives’ discourses referring to the European Union, since, on the one hand, they promote the core values of the EU, interstates cooperation and European cohesion, but, on the other hand, when they are to act in accordance with their discourse, many make a step back. We also seem to observe a reverse situation, given that until the economic crisis the European Unión was more a political bet than a social one, and now, the European citizens seem to trust more the European Unión and its actions to restore the European economies then the national governments. The economic problems faced especially by the new member states along with the Greek and Irish financial collapse made some academics and politicians doubt the future of the European Union. However, the last Euro-barometer suggests a greater support from EU citizens for a more active contribution of EU institutions in bearing the economic crisis.

Although there are lots of interpretations of the last European barometer, where some refer to the results as a great loss of trust, since 42% of the Europeans say they trust the EU, six points lower in just six months, according to the results of the EU barometer 72, „European citizens want the European Union to play a post crisis role since they consider that the EU is, together with national governments, the most effective level for dealing with the effects of the crisis... In terms of values, the European Union embodies the values of humanism, democracy and peace dear to Europeans and which represent their common set of values” . The European citizens ask for “more Europe since, 75% of them consider that a stronger coordination between member states will help weather the economic storm” . The European citizens seem to trust the EU capacity for action to confront the economic challenges and make a common effort to surpass this crisis; the question is whether the national governments are prepared to do the same.

Furthermore, I would like to make some reference to the European values of humanism, democracy and peace, since, in my opinion and agreeing with Carlos Taibo thesis; we must not talk about the crisis in singular but in plural. The author, in his book “Su crisis y la nuestra”, talks about other three crises along with the economic one: the climate change affecting the whole world; the inevitable depletion and price increases of energy raw materials we use and a third one, related to the deepening of the growth gap between the Third World Countries and the developed democracies. However, in my opinion we should add a forth crisis to this list, the one that we probably encounter at the source of all the other four. I am talking about a crisis of values of the old model. This values crisis is not recent, it has been in a maggot stage up until now. This economic recession has made it burst into a wave of xenophobia, racism, and disrespect with human rights around the world and Europe is not an exception.

The core values of the European Unión, according to the Lisbon Treaty, are human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and the respect for human rights, destined to create a citizens’ Europe and a universal identity of the European Unión. They are common to all Member States, and any European country wishing to become a member of the Union must respect them.  During the past years, however, there has been a dead short between the european politicians speech and their actions, fact that, like it or not, lead to a confusion among the european citizenship. On the one hand the european representatives expressed their support to enhance the application of theese core values, to the point that the EU became their promoter at a global level, and on the other hand, the EU member states, are among the first to break them.

A lot of examples could come into discussion at this point, examples related to the French governmental actions against roma citizens coming especially from Romania and Bulgaria, leading to a conflict with the EU Justice Commissiner Viviane Reding and the nearly start of the infringement procedure, the Italian migration policies, but also a wave of xenophobia in the northern European states, recognized for their integration policies. The subliminal message of all these actions is that the difference between “us” and “others” has not been overcome yet and that there is more to work at in the new states integration process.

The process of the European identity construction is a mix of at least three ingredients: feeling, doing and saying  that we do. Felling refers to a sense of belonging to a group based on common values, culture, and ethnicity, doing refers to actively participating in the decision making process and saying that you do refers to the creation of a certain discourse in the member states which, in words of Vivien A. Schmidt would become “part of a deliberative process of public sphere, in which the generation, communication, and contestation of such narratives contributes equally to the construction of identity.”  We could say that the feeling ingredient is covered by the set of values mentioned above with which all European citizens seem to feel identified, whether the existence of these values is enough or not represents another questionable issue. To what the active participation is concerned, the EU has put a lot of effort in making the European citizenship voice heard by empowering the European Parliament, the only EU institution directly elected, introducing the legislative initiative , a great number of pilot projects and actions to enhance the participation of the associative sector in member states, etc.

Last but not least, the saying ingredient seems to be the one we are missing in the process. Although there is a general agreement on the fact that the European identity is more of an elite business, national discourses about the EU have been very different and much related to the historical moment. Therefore we encounter, on the one hand, at least three major visions about what the European identity represents: citizens’ vision, national governments vision and the EU vision, which are not convergent all the time. On the other hand we presence two dynamics in the EU identity formation: bottom-up and top-down, which sometimes are in conflict. All these forces involved in the EU identity construction process, along with the economic recession puts the EU at a crossroad and makes this context an important opportunity for the EU to become more present in national lives.

The case of Romania

As we all know Romania became a member of the European Union in 2007 together with Bulgaria. Romanians are today, if could say so, the most “European citizens” of the EU, since in 2009 around 2 million Romanian citizens lived in other EU member states. Only Turkey, a non-EU state, overcomes us with 2.4 million citizens living in EU region. Rumania represents the first major source of intra-EU migrants with 1.9 million people, followed by Italy, 1.2 million; and Poland, Portugal, and the UK, about 900,000 each.  This demonstrates the fact that Romanians see the EU integration as an open gate to travel and work freely. In words of Vivien A. Schmidt, it is a pragmatic discourse of the EU “as a borderless problem-solving entity ensuring free markets and regional security, which is generally characteristic of the UK, Scandinavian countries, and the Central and Eastern European countries.”

Romanians pragmatism is also revealed by the fact that, although there are 4 years since Romania’s entrance in the EU, 72% of them don´t know what are their rights and obligations as European citizens and 71% of them do not know the European institutions.

This situation is at least contradictory. How can Romanians by at the same time “the most European” citizens and at the same time have no idea about its implications. It could be that our pragmatism makes us feel as Europeans, not act as such. As a matter of fact, in the same study , 78% of the interviewed responded that they don’t get involved in the projects of their community. This demonstrates the civic apathy Romanians are immersed in and their contradictory values.

The third ingredient used in the identity formation is the saying ingredient, national politicians discourse about Romanians as European citizens and the values that they promote. But the relationship between Romanians and their politicians is more vitiated then ever by the unnumbered cases of corruption, the mutual distrust and the economic crisis consequences. The lack of a real transparency and accountability has developed into the absence of the civic and political culture, since Romania is currently one of the states with the lowest percentages of both the citizens’ participation in the electoral process, and especially of volunteering, as an illustration of active civil participation. Following this line and according to the Report carried out by the Educational, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency (EAC-EA), in the context of the 2011 European Year of Volunteering, the European percentage average of volunteers is 23% of which 75% have less than 34 years. However, there are important differences throughout the member states, since in Romania, the report shows 10 to 20% participation, especially in religious and church organizations volunteering . A report of the Romanian National Youth Agency from 2008, talks about only 7% of young Romanian citizens are involved in volunteer actions.

This could be explained, on the one hand by the Romanian tradition and communist reminiscences and, on the other hand, by the low impact that volunteering has in the Romanian public agenda .

The fact that Romanian citizens scarcely participate in volunteering is another proof of their not doing not only at European level but also at national level. The economic crisis represents an added value to the lack of civic participation. Romania is one of the European Union member states most affected by the economic recession. This determines an augmentation of the disenchantment with their representatives and a total break between the two, which determines an increase of their apathy and their lack of participation, whether it is political or civic participation.

In conclusion, my intention in this brief intervention is to put on the table some issues related to the European identity in general and during this economic downturn, in particular with a short allusion to the Romanian case to generate deliberation on these topics.

The economic problems tend to attract the entire attention and to disparage the identity construction and value codes by considering them to symbolic for our pragmatic lives. However, the paradox is that humans are social being; political animals as Aristotle said, and they feel the need of belonging to a group to be identified with something. Based on the values we feel identified with, we make decisions and takes actions at both a micro and macro level.