EU nationalism /supernationalism or Europeanism?

Toshchiy Imperatritsy Vselennoy

I do not quite know how to phrase it considering the nature of the spirit of some groups i see in Europe would make labelling it a type of nationalism accurate yet it is technically in accurate since it is made up of nation states.
I have heard many particularly young people on the continent describe themselves s Europeans now. I had never witnesse that before. It is a bigger movement than ever before and seems much more widely accepted than here.

I think a lot of it stems from the fct tht it is common in some parts of Europe for someone you have a German father and a French mother, or one Spanish parent and one Italian parent.
Do you think it exists?

On the one hand we see economic nationalism in it's traditional form. Sovreign states looking for their own best interests first. Commentators have said that the "spectre of protectionism" is once again haunting Europe, as governments frightened by the rise in cross-border takeovers and mergers and faced by stubbornly high levels of unemployment have sought to protect high profile national companies and to promote national "champions".

Is their a difference in national mood towards europeanism in where you are from and how would you describe that mood?

I apologise if it has been done to death already.

I am on neither side really just an outsider noticing conflicting ideologies.

The Corinthian

Having an Irish and an Italian parent, and always having had a foot in both cultures, languages, etc. (thus always not being quite one or the other), it's certainly easy to see where the concept of a European nationality would be attractive to someone like myself. Given this, people like me are a minority, so it really would not explain any significant shift in attitudes twoards Europeanism.

Instead, there are a number of other factors that have played a part, I believe, many of which have been in motion for decades at this stage:

Increased Interaction. In the last thirty or so years we've seen numerous changes that have made interaction between Europeans easier. Freedom of movement and the single market have made it easier for many of us to travel and even live within the EU for periods. Other than the effect that we have on the local population where abroad (most notably settling down and marrying there), it's also meant that many of us are comfortable with trying or adopting different European habits, languages and cuisines.

Additionally, the effects of schemes such as ERASMUS, or sporting events such as the Ryder Cup, cannot be understated in this regard.

Indeed, when I moved to Ireland (late seventies), air travel was prohibitively expensive and going to France for the Summer was as exotic as it got for most. We were tea drinkers (pro capita the highest in the World) and the only coffee you could get was instant. Less said about food, the better.

Ease of travel, work and trade has had a profound effect on interaction between European states and cultural crossovers.

Non-British Identity. This too cannot be ignored - again, in the late seventies, Ireland was completely dependant, both economically and culturally on the UK. The vast bulk of our trade was with Britain, and even our currency was linked to theirs.

Shifting emphasis to Europe, I believe, was an important step for us as it gave us a 'greater' identity that was importantly not British. Being so reliant on Britain since independence was never something we were overly comfortable with, I believe. And so, even on a cultural level we embraced the possibility to differentiate ourselves from the British, through our association with Europe.

Amerika. In my opinion George W Bush did more for European nationalism than the EEC/EC/EU ever did. Prior to him anti-Americanism was a fringe fetish; typically held by a small group of left-wing extremists, as most Europeans saw the US as perhaps bumbling and arrogant at worst, but ultimately well-meaning, benign and to be trusted to safeguard the greater interests of us all.

Bush, and the disastrous non-conservative policies he followed, spectacularly shattered this illusion. In the space of two or three years, Europeans suddenly lost faith in their 'American cousins' and realized that we could not ultimately rely upon them to be either well-meaning, benign and to be trusted to safeguard the greater interests of us all.

If you go back to threads around 2003 here, you'll find a dramatic shift in attitudes. Threads theorizing on a future military conflict between America and Europe began to appear, which was not only shocking in that it viewed America as a potential future enemy, but more so because it was framed not in terms of Germany, Ireland or France, but of Europe.

In short, we could no longer rely upon America and so we began to look to ourselves, and thus Europe, instead.

Ultimately, one needs to ask what is national identity though. Europe may be a geographical region rather than a national identity, but then again, so was Italy. Germany was a loose ethnic group who spoke Germanic languages, which incidentally were more often than not unintelligible and included the Dutch. Spain and Britain are accidents of history - both personal unions brought about through marriage or inheritance.

It took me years to realize this, but nationalism is really little more than a scam. A common bond to keep us all marching in the same direction that was invented principally during the Enlightenment, so as to replace the previous binding forces of religion and the all important divine right of monarchs.

Whether this 'European' trend will continue through, is another matter, as it is by no means fully integrated yet.

The Browser

Interesting post by the Corinthian. I'm Irish, but I live in Dubai and generally describe myself as European when asked where I'm from, in the form of "I'm European, from Ireland". When speaking with Arabs and Indians here who ask about my culture, I generally say "In Europe, people do...".
Why? Because actually, compared with what you might loosely call Arab or Hindu culture, European cultures are incredibly similar to each other and it makes sense to speak collectively (note that they're not asking me about traditional music, for example, when they're asking me about culture. They're asking me about male-female relations, attitudes to religion, economics, fashions, etc).

I find that when Arabs or Indians ask me about where I'm from, they ask me about Europe as though it were one entity. They might then ask me about the differences between the various European countries (though this is rare); but on the major themes of social attitudes and norms, I struggle to find a major difference between European countries -- and so "Europe" and "Europeans" are words that get used a lot. I think it's cool.

I do find that it's quite easy to explain the differences between Europeans and Americans, though. Many of the Arabs and Indians here view America and Europe as just "the west" and are surprised to hear about the cultural differences that exist between the two regions.

The Browser

I should also point out that here in Dubai, I'm part of a large batch of new-hires. Most of my colleagues are from various Arab countries or India. The small minority of us that are from Europe -- Ireland, Germany, Poland, and Finland -- gravitated to each other quite naturally at a recent luncheon and had very similar perspectives and experiences of this new, exciting place that we've all moved to. And we all happened to use the word "Europe" a lot during the conversation, more by accident than deliberately. So yes, there's definitely a European identity which comes to the fore when you're out of Europe or dealing with non-Europeans.

The Corinthian

My post really just suggested different influences, mainly from the Irish perspective, as to why we have become more 'European'.

The Browser wrote: »

So yes, there's definitely a European identity which comes to the fore when you're out of Europe or dealing with non-Europeans.

I agree, but this has been the case for continental Europeans for a long time. Anglophones, including the Irish, tended in the past to gravitate first to other Anglophones and then to other Europeans. For the Irish, this has changed a lot, especially as English has become the de facto international language and we have become increasingly more comfortable with other languages ourselves - so we'll often feel slightly more comfortable with a German or Italian than an American.

I do find that the British, especially the English, expats will still tend to gravitate more twoards Anglophones first though, preferring the company of the aforementioned American over an Italian and, especially, a German.

Personally, I tend to prefer the company of continental Europeans to Anglophones, but then again I'm unusual in that I'm already 'half continental' myself and can also speak a number of European languages.