The Idea of a European Identity as an Escape Forward: A Historical Perspective on the Present Euro Crisis

Stråth Bo (Professor in Nordic, European and World History, Helsinki University, Finland), bo.strath@helsinki.fi

The idea of a European identity was launched as an attempt to hide the failure to link the social and the economic in the Werner Plan. It was an escape from political action and responsibility in a situation of economic and political crisis in the 1970s. In the 1990s, the identity concept was linked to the economistic internal market language. The European identity and the subsequent European demos would emerge through European citizens performing on and driven by the market. The emerging identity through the market would provide the preconditions of a European demos and a European democracy. Today the concept of a European identity has lost meaning due to the neglect of the social.

Keywords: European identity, democratic EU, euro crises, Werner Plan