Başlık: EURO-NATIONALISM: AN IMPASSE FOR THE EUROPEAN UNIONYazar(lar):SAMUR, Hakan Cilt: 4 Sayı: 1 Sayfa: 001-018 DOI: 10.1501/Avraras_0000000079 Yayın Tarihi: 2004 PDF

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Ankara

Euro Nationalism: An Impasse for the European

Union

Hakan SAMUR

Turkey and the European Union Relations: A Historical Assessment

Ali AYBEY

Sozalier und Politischer Wandel In Der Türkei

Coşkun SAN

Helsinki'den Günümüze AB-Türkiye ili şkileri Çerçevesinde Kıbrıs Gelişmeleri

Melek FIRAT

Consensual Hegemony and the West European Promotion of Order in the Balkans

Emillian R.KAVALSKI

Birlik Hukuku ve Anayasa Aras ındaki İlişki

A. Füsun ARSAYA

Avrupa Birliği Anayasalaşma Sürecinde Adalet Divanı'nın Rolü: Divanın Ulusal Mahkemelerle ilişkileri ve Yorum Yetkisinin S ınırları Bağlamında Bir Analiz

Sanem BAYKAL

Gümrük Birliği 'Anlaşması'nın (1/95 sayılı Ortaklık Konseyi Kararı'nın ) Hukuksal Niteliği. Kemal BAŞLAR ' ):4"

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ANKARA ÜNİVERSİTESİ AVRUPA TOPLULUKLARI ARAŞTIRMA VE UYGULAMA MERKEZİ ADINA SAHİBİ

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ANKARA ÜNIVERSITESI

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ANKARA AVRUPA ÇALI

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Euro Nationalism: An Impasse for the European Union

Hakan SAMUR 1

Turkey and the European Union Relations: A Historical Assessment

Ali AYBEY 19

Coşkun SAN 33

Helsinki'den Günümüze AB-Türkiye İlişkileri Çerçevesinde Kıbrıs Gelişmeleri

Melek FIRAT 47

Consensual Hegemony and the West European Promotion of Order in the Balkan

Emillian R.KAVALSKI 81

Birlik Hukuku ve Anayasa Arasındaki İlişki

A. Füsun ARSAYA 99

Avrupa Birliği Anayasalaşma Sürecinde Adalet Divanı'nın Rolü: Divanın Ulusal Mahkemelerle İlişkileri ve Yorum Yetkisinin S ınırları Bağlamında Bir Analiz

Sanem BAYKAL 121

Gümrük Birliği `Anlaşması'nın (1/95 sayılı Ortaklık Konseyi Kararı'nın ) Hukuksal Niteliği

Kemal BAŞLAR 151

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ANKARA REVIEW OF EUROPEAN STUDIES

Fall - 2004 Volume: 4, Number: 1

EURO-NATIONALISM: AN IMPASSE FOR THE

EUROPEAN UNION

Hakan SAMUR*

ABSTRACT

Avrupa Birliği'nin, üye ülkeler arasındaki işbirliğini ve entegrasyonu daha da arttrabilmek ve bütün yönleri ile tek bir politik topluluk idealine ulaşabilmek yolunda ihtiyaç duyduğu unsurların başında, söz konusu topluluğu oluşturacak bireyler arasında ortak bir kimliğin inşa edilmesi zorunluluğu gelmektedir. Bu noktada, ortak bir AB kimliğinin muhtevasının ne olduğu ya da olması gerektiği hususunda çok yoğun tartışmalar yapılmaktadır. ileriye sürülen alternatifler arasında, devamlı olarak gündemde kalan ve lehinde ya da aleyhinde en çok konu şulanlardan biri de, 'Avrupa milliyetçiliği' genel kavramı altında açıklayabileceğimiz ve bu makalenin konusunu teşkil eden görüştür. Bugünün AB' sini oluşturan ülke insanlarının, Avrupalılık bağlamında ortak bir tarihe, kültürel mirasa ve gelişme çizgisine sahip oldukları ön kabulünden hareketle, söz konusu ortak alanlara dayanarak 'milli devlet benzeri' ortak bir AB kimliğinin oluşturulmasını esas alan Avrupa milliyetçiliği, taşıdığı birçok yanlışlık ve yetersizlik nedeniyle, yine birçoklar ına ve bu makalenin yazarına göre, AB için uygun bir tercih olarak görülmemektedir. Makale, AB'de ortak kimlik olu şturma ihtiyacını doğuran sebepleri özetledikten ve Avrupa milliyetçili ği akımının temel dayanak noktalarını belirttikten sonra, bu yanlışlık ve yetersizlikleri açıklayarak, böyle bir kimliğin AB için neden uygun tercih olamayacağını ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Ortak AB kimliği, Milli Devlet, Avrupa milliyetçili ği, Avrupa Tarihi, Kültür.

Keywords: Common EU identity, Nation State, Euro-nationalism, European

History, Culture .

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2 HAKAN SAMUR

Introduction

The concept of `common' has been one of the key concepts in making progress towards European integration, particularly by the 1990s. Conferring the adjective `common' on a specific policy area means enhancing its position to the European Union (EU) level and gaining it a collective or shared basis. The increasing use of this concept in various major policy areas at EU level implies the ultimate aim: the development of co-operation and interaction among European states to establish a powerful and fully-fledged political community (the ideal of ever closer union). The issue of common EU identity seems to be one of the most critical of these policy areas because, as the name implies, it colours and promotes all the other policy areas and provides a normative basis for the continuity of closer co-operation. The Union is itself in a process of formation and, specifically, constructing a common identity is still a challenge yet to be resolved for the EU though some concrete policies have been developed in recent decades. There is significant discussion about the way to create and develop a sense of European identity and loyalty. To us, this discussion has predominantly been warming up along two contrasting lines, namely those of backward-looking Euro-nationalism and future-oriented political identity. Drawing inspiration from the formation of nation states, the first line conceives a nation-state-like common identity for the Union in terms of common history and common cultural heritage. This line can be called, following Wilterdink,' Euro-nationalim. However, in our view, for various reasons that are revealed in the article, the construction of such a common identity for the EU seems an impossible task.

Realising this impossibility, many scholars have developed another strong line and proposed a common political identity for the EU around some political (civic virtues, democracy, rule of law, human rights) and economic (market orientation) values. Unlike the first line, this is a future-oriented perspective and, in the past two decades especially, this line has increasingly found supporters. Leaving aside the rhetoric of culture, tradition and history as homogenising and legitimating factors in the nation-state, the supporters of this line have advocated the construction of a European political identity within a post-national context hinging upon civic-democratic values, rule of law, human rights, multiculturalism and market economy.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to scrutinise all the aspects of these two contreversial and wide-ranging lines within the limits of one article. Therefore, this article aims to concern the Euro-nationalist approach to common EU identity. After explaining the emergence of the need for a common identity in the EU in the first section, we attempt to focus on the arguments of the Euro- Sico Wilterdink, "The European Ideal: An Examination of European and National Identity," Archives Europeennes De Sociologie, Vol. 34 (1993).

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EURO-NATIONALISM: AN IMPASSE FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION 3

nationalists in the following section. As already mentioned, in our view, Euro-nationalism is not a possible solution for the EU to attain a common identity. That is why, in the third section, we unfold the counter arguments to those Euronationalist ones to clarify our views on why Euro-nationalism is an impossible way to meet the common identity requirement in the EU.

Before going to these sections, we should clarify a conceptual point here. There might be a disparity between people's perception of Europe and the EU. However, the aim of the EU (and specifically of its identity formation strategy) is to ally these two concepts with each other and, then, to establish a European order within the context of the EU. The EU, according to this official discourse, would be the house of Europeans. In other words, the target of the identity formation policy is to adorn EU citizens with the understanding of we-Europeans and, from the EU perspective at least, there is no difference between the concepts of common European identity and common EU identity. Emerson summarises this view of the EU (the Brussels' Europe) that `beyond the EU, there is no other, wider European map of real coherence. Non-EU countries are a geo-political no man's land'. 2 Therefore, the use of European identity in this study should be understood as the targeted common identity in the EU.

1. The Rise of a Common Identity Requisite in the EU

According to a European historian, until the French Revolution, the term Europe had been associated with separate concepts, namely with political freedom in the era of the ancient Greeks, with Christendom throughout the Middle Ages, with balance-of-power politics from the sixteenth century, and with civilisation during the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Only after the Revolution, 'the idea of Europe' had emerged with a history and clearly defined meaning. 3 As a matter of fact, this consolidation process had started gradually in the sixteenth century when the term 'European', rather than `Christendom' began to be used in identifying people of these lands; then it had continued by being widely incorporated in political discourse in the late seventeenth century; and, finally, it had been the theme of many different theoretical plans on European unification definitely long before 1789.4Consequently, Europe ripened as an `aggregation of ideas', 5 a `plurality

2Michael Emerson, Redrawing the Map of Europe, London, Macmillan, 1998, p. xx.

3 Pim Den Boer, "Europe to 1914: the Making of An Idea," Kevin Wilson and Jan van der Dussen

(eds.), The History of the Idea of Europe, London, Routledge, 1995, p. 13.

Derek Heater, The Idea of European Unity, Leicester, Leicester University Press, 1992; Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality, London, Macmillan, 1995; Heikki Mikkeli, Europe As An Idea and Identity, London, Macmillan, 1998. A chronological account of these plans can be found in Heater's and especially in Mikkeli' s books.

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4 HAKAN SAMUR

of conflicting interpretations' each based on a historical background, 6 and an `awareness of itself as an intellectual entity' . 7 At times merely an economic union, at times further projects of cultural and political union have been proposed over the centuries to realise a European unification. Supposedly, during the last two centuries alone, there have been more than 160 plans to unify Europe in one way or another. s The emergence of those plans for peaceful integration in a theoretical context, however, could not find any basis in reality, and the experiments throughout history to unify Europe, from the Romans and Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire to Napoleon and Hitler's Third Reich, hinged on war, invasion and oppression. 9

For the purposes of averting another devastating war, achieving prosperity for European people and developing Europe as a world power, a new wave of effort towards European unification has been launched after the Second World War through the founding treaties of the European Community. Unlike previous attempts, this last endeavour pursued a peaceful and cooperative path. This latest attempt also, for the first time, made it possible to practise a European integration process, whereas the previous ones could merely dream about and, maybe because of this, it seemed to some as the final chance for Europe."

On the eve of this last endeavour, two main approaches were put forward to accelerate European integration. The first one was the federalist approach, of which Altiero Spinelli was a major proponent. It aimed to establish a union by drafting a common constitution through the representatives of a European constituent assembly whom would be elected by the parliaments of member states and, then, approval of this draft by there national parliaments. 12

The neo-functionalist approach, on the other hand, proposed to reach unity through gradual, incremental steps in certain areas, which would cause a `spill

6 Peter Bugge, "Europe 1914-1945: The Nation Supreme," Kevin Wilson and Jan van der

Dussen (eds.), op. cit., p. 83.

Helene Ahrweiler, "Roots and Trends in European Culture," Soledad Garcia (ed.), European identity and the Search for Legitimacy, London, Pinter and Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1993, p. 34.

8 Sven Papcke, "Who Needs European Identity and What Could It Be?," Brian Nelson et al (eds.), The Idea of Europe, Oxford, Berg, 1992, p. 72.

9 Annabel Black ve Cris Shore, "Citizen's Europe and the Construction of European Identity,"

Victoria Goddard et al (eds.), the Anthropology of Europe, 2"d ed., Oxford, Berg, 1996, p. 277.

I° Anthony Smith, "National Identity and the Idea of European Unity," International Affairs, Vol. 68, No. 2 (1992), p. 55.

Lord Gladwyn, The European Idea, London, Weidenfeld&Nicolson, 1966.

u Altiero Spinelli, "The Growth of the European Movement Since the Second World War," Michael Hodges (ed.), European Integration: Selected Readings, Baltimore, Penguin, 1972, p. 68.

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over' effect to give rise to harmonisation and further integration in other areas . 13

Eventually, this second approach came to the fore as a theoretical base for the strategies of the pioneers of the European Community. Indeed, despite Churchill's heartfelt advice to all participants 14 - "Europe unite!" -, the unsuccessful attempt in the Hague Conference (1948) towards this goal, and the inadequacy of the other organisations (Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (1948) and the Council of Europe (1949), convinced Jean Monnet that it was too early to envisage a complete unification. 15 The evidence of neo-functionalist discourse can be observed clearly in the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 16 , which was the first attempt at integration: 'Europe will not be made all at once or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements, which first create a de facto solidarity...'

Therefore, the Community's initial activities were canalised and confined to economic integration. Political and social integration, as a `by-produce or `side-effect', would be created inevitably as a result of deepening economic integration. 17 In fact, the ultimate aim of the neo-functionalist approach was similar to the federalists'. Referring again to the Schuman Declaration, it was announced that the cooperation between France and Germany in coal and steel production would be 'the first concrete foundation of a European federation indispensable to the preservation of peace.'

During the 1950s and 1960s, the strategy of the Community institutions continued to pursue this economy-oriented integration process within the framework of elite associations rather than interaction among the ordinary people of the Community. 18 By the 1970s, the situation began to change. The motivating factors behind this change were the launch of the Merger Treaty in

1967, which brought together the European Coal and Steel Community, The European Atomic Energy Community and the European Economic Community into one European Community; De Gaulle's leaving power in 1969, since he was an inexorable hindrance to further steps towards European integration; and, finally, the inclusion of three additional states in 1973. Since then, the concepts

13 John Peterson and Elizabeth Bomberg, Decision Making in the European Union, London,

Macmillan, 1999; Cris Shore, Building Europe, London, Rourledge, 2000, p. 42.

14 It should be noted that, despite this advice, ironically, Churchill's placement of his country in

this unity was rather elusive as he had stated several times since the early 1930s: "We are with Europe, but not of it". For a detailed information: Heater, op. cit.; Clive Ponting, "Churchill and Europe," Robert Bideleux and Richard Taylor (eds.), European Integration and Disintegration, London, Routledge, 1996.

15 Pascal Fontaine, A New Idea for Europe: The Schumann Declaration 1950-2000, ed.,

Luxembourg, OOPEC, 2000.

16 (http://europa.eu.int/abc/symbols/9-may/decl_en.htm)

17Peterson ve Bomberg, op. cit.; Shore, op. cit., s. 18.

IS Paul Howe, "A Community of Europeans: The Requisite Underpinnings," Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1995), p. 28.

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6 HAKAN SAMUR

of a `citizen's Europe' and a `people's Europe' have begun to be invoked very often in consequence of the need 'for a Europe close to its well-informed citizens', and because of the debates about the legitimacy of the Union. 19 Then, the first mentions of the issue of common identity began to be seen in EC documents. In fact, some individual rights e.g. free movement, non-discrimination, or the right to appeal to the European Court of Justice had been introduced in the Treaty of Rome, but they were rather limited in scope, and only a few people exerted them. The main reason for their implementation was to facilitate the completion of economic convergence. 2° Yet political integration cannot merely depend upon economic achievements to build its future. As Wallace pointed out, definitions of political integration all comprise political and social building blocks as well as economic ones. 21

At the same time, these building blocks are not limited to institution building and policy-making. Deutsch and his colleagues describe integration as "the attainment, within a territory, of a `sense of community' and of institutions and practices strong enough and widespread enough to assure, for a long' time, dependable expectations of `peaceful change' among its population". Occupying a significant place in this definition, the sense of community is "a matter of mutual sympathy and loyalties; of `we-feeling', trust, and mutual consideration; of partial identification in terms of self images and interests; of mutually successful predictions of behaviour, and of co-operative action in accordance with it - in short, a matter of a perpetual dynamic process of mutual attention, communication, perception of needs, and responsiveness in the process of decision-making" . 22

All in all, since the 1970s, the search for a common identity to underpin political integration has always been a live topic in the EU. Particularly by the

1980s, while Europe was experiencing a comprehensive reorganisation of its own structure through a deepening (the Single European Act and then the Treaty on European Union) and widening (southern enlargement) process, the issue of generating a sense of common consciousness among the people gained greater importance. In addition, rising anxieties about the manipulation of geopolitical boundaries in post-Cold War Europe, 23 the escalating of `return to Europe' rhetoric in the eastern part of the continent, the mounting problems due to the evident increase in the non-European population (immigrants, asylum

Black ve Shore, op. cit p. 275.

2° Jennifer M. Welsh, "A People's Europe? European Citizenship and European Identity,"

Politics, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1993), p. 26.

2' William Wallace, "Introduction," in William Wallace (ed.), The Dynamics of European Integration, London, Pinter, 1990, p. 9.

22 Karl Deutsch et al, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1957, p. 5-36.

23 Michael Smith, "The European Union and a Changing Europe: Establishing the Boundaries of Order," Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 34, No. 1. (1996).

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seekers and alien residents) in the member states and, finally, lasting tensions emanating from ethnic minorities and other marginal groups who cannot express or maintain their own identities within the current legal political structure of the nation states, have all stimulated the exploration of the inclusive and exclusive characteristics of European identity to identify a common ground on which a political community could be raised.

2. The Euro-nationalist View of a Common EU Identity

Therefore, alongside its gradually rising importance, an extensive discussion around the definition of an already existing or a possible European identity has emerged. Many questions can be formulated under the rubric of European identity. However, the very controversial and challengeable character of the identity issue in a European context, before anything else, can be comprehended by asking a simple question: What is Europe? Nonetheless, the answer is not as simple as the question. There is no consensus about where Europe begins and ends. Even the separate continentality of Europe has been the matter of lasting discussion. 24According to Jordan, Europe (with her one-fifth share in total territories) was part of a larger Asian continent, rather than a separate one. He especially examines the eastern borders of Europe and continues: 25

Many different borders have been used through the years, and at one time or another just about every river and mountain range oriented in a north-south direction in Russia and in western Siberia has served as some cartographer's boundary of Europe. Eventually one particular border gained widespread acceptance26...This utterly contrived border, which is stili used by a surprising number of scholars, has no validity in either physical or human terms. It seeks out and elevates to a position of unwarranted importance an insignificant river and low mountain ridge, the Urals, which is in no sense a barrier range or a divider.

Article 237 of the original Rome Treaty states that 'any European State may apply to become a member of the Community'

27

It declares a distinction

24 Terry G. Jordan, The European Culture Area, London, Harper&Row, 1973; Mikkeli, op. cit.,

p. 121; Anthony Pagden, "Europe: Conceptualizing a Concept," Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Idea of Europe: From Antiquity to the European Union, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Ibid., p. 5.

26 He describes it in detail. In general, this border is from the eastern end of the Black Sea to the

Arctic Ocean through the Ural Mountains.

27 The Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 has modified this Article by adding an important statement:

'Any European State which respects the principles in Article F (1) may apply to become a member of the Union.' Article F (1) says 'the Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.' This

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8 HAKAN SAMUR

between European and non-European countries but does not illuminate what the term European refers to. 28 Nevertheless, determining Europe's boundaries, which indicates a distinction between its entity and its environment, has a significant importance for the strategies of the Union and for the broader European order because of the relation between "power of inclusion or exclusion and the issues of access and control, representation and `voice' and the availability of information". 29 Therefore, to set the boundaries of Europe by referring to some other determinants, rather than mere geographical ones, is a widely applied method.

Indeed, depending upon the different perspectives, and whether the evaluations are subjective or objective, the definitions of Europe may be changeable and paradoxical. In terms of geography, institutional-legal structure, culture, or patterns of social, economic, and political interaction, a different core area emerges.3° >From this point of view, Europe is not only a geographical reality and polity, as Delanty pointed out, it is also an idea and identity. 3 ' Some people attempt to describe Europe from the opposite angle (non-European regions, thoughts and values). Therefore, the answer to the question of European identity will be, at the same time, the answer to the question of what Europe is. This point confirms again the vitality of the common identity issue for the EU.

One important theoretical line is the one that attempts to depict a European identity by taking the national identities, to a lesser or greater extent, as a reference point. This Euro-nationalist approach gives precedence to common history, tradition, mythical references, and other nation-state-like identity-shaping instruments. As there has been no similar case of transnational integration in history, the formation of the nation state and national identity has become the first source that comes to mind to refer to. According to the supporters of Euro-nationalism, this source can demonstrate some useful points concerning the identity formation process in the EU. This is because, although some of the building blocks of nationalism (or national identity) have a very long history (ethnicity, culture, etc.) and although the evolving process of national identities and consciousness dates back to earlier times 32 , nationalism

modification is important to clarify the official stance about common European identity. However, this provision does not mean that these principles are only specific to the EU and stili does not certify the geographical boundaries of Europe.

28 Victoria Goddard et al. "Introduction: The Anthropology of Europe," Victoria Goddard et al

(eds.), op. cit., p. 26.

29 Michael Smith, op. cit., p. 12.

3° Goddard et al (eds), op. cit., p. 27. 31Delanty, op. cit.

32 For example Anderson denotes the emergence of basic print languages by the 16 1 century as

the most important initiator of this national consciousness process. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, London, Verso, 1983.

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has appeared as a new concept that belongs to the modern era and, since the end of the eighteenth century, it has explicitly become the main determining ideology f independent political structures (states) and the basic element of collective political identities. 33 So much so that, even if there are some other nations within their borders dependent on the dominant one, modern states identify themselves as nations or at least national states 34 and then people may be simultaneously seen as both citizens of the state and members of a nation. 35 This critical role of nationalism was confirmed by the Wilson principles at the end of the First World War. Similarly, since the rise of the nation state as a basic figure of the modern era, the dominant understanding of the idea of Europe has been a Europe of nation states. 36 During the period of industrial capitalism and bureaucracy, the number and extent of possible identities and loyalties have increased, comprising professional, civic and ethnic adherences, in addition to gender, age, class, and religion, but national identity has surpassed the others in scope and power. 37

Therefore, starting from this saliency of the nation-state, many political actors and scholars have endorsed a parallel identity for EU that leans on some similar tools played role in the formation of national identities. Among these, the main tool of Euro-nationalists has been a selective reading of the past and a common cultural heritage, which was assumed to have been influential in every part of Europe to a greater or lesser extent. According to this view, Europe is the area where the values of Greek philosophy, Roman law, Christianity, Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the French revolution, `balance of power' politics and industrialisation have been inherited. 38 Paul Valery, the ardent supporter of this line, defines a `true European' as one who was Romanised and Christianised and whose mind was disciplined by the Greeks. 39 The universal ideas that emerged from Greco-Roman Europe, Christian Europe and technological Europe made the world what it is. 4° Jordan, who rejected the

33 John A. Armstrong, Nations Before Nationalism, North Carolina, The University of North

Carolina Press, 1982; Joseph R. Llobera, "The role of the State and the Nation in Europe," Soledad Garcia (ed.), op. cit., p. 70; David Miller, On Nationality, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995.

34 The difference in the latter is that they rely on a common public culture as well as popular

sovereignty to raise legitimacy in such a heterogeneous structure. For further information: Joseph R. Llobera, op. cit., p. 65.

35Tomas Hammar, Democracy and the Nation State, Aldershot, Avebury, 1990. 36Delanty, op. cit., p. 157.

37Anthony Smith, op. cit., p. 58.

38 William Wallace, "Introduction," William Wallace (ed.), The Dynamics of European

Integration, London, Pinter, 1990; Anthony Smith, op. cit.; Richard Hill, We Europeans, Brussels, Europublications, 1995.

39 Denis De Rougemont, The Idea of Europe, London, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, p. 367.

Lambros Couloubaritsis et al, The Origins of European Identity, Brussels, European Interuniversity Press, 1993.

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10 HAKAN SAMUR

physical distinctiveness of Europe as cited before, was also distinguishing it from other lands as a culture area in which people shared `numerous features of belief, behaviour, and overall way of life in common, including ideology, technology, social institutions, and material possessions' . 41

The creation of the nation state and nationalism has frequently been made a scapegoat for leaving this cultural togetherness behind. 42 However, despite this or other burdens, Hill argued that alongside and overriding those components, the peoples of this continent, even if subconsciously, were aware of their common European roots

According to Euro-nationalist thought, in spite of the cleavages within Christianity, Europe is known as the homeland of Christendom, not of Judaism or Islam. So much so that while introducing his idea of a `Common European Home'; even Gorbachev attempted to refer to Christianity to prove that his countrymen were Europeans, 44 forgetting the split of the two Churches, Rome and Byzantium, in 1054, which afterwards led to the emergence of long-lasting struggles and wars between two sides, and a separate civilisation in the East, in which the West had continuously been the source of abhorrence and fear: 45

Some in the West are trying to "exclude" the Soviet Union from Europe. Now and, then, as if inadvertently, they equate "Europe" with "Western Europe." Such ploys, however, cannot change the geographic and historical realities. Russia's trade, cultural and political links with other European nations and states have deep roots in history. We are Europeans. Old Russia was united with Europe by Christianity, and the millennium of its arrival in the land of our ancestors will be marked next year. The history of Russia is an organic part of the great European history.

Contrary to Gorbachev's argument, for example in Poland, for centuries the frontier of the catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was assumed to be the bulwark of Christianity against assaults from the East including Russians.

Language has also been a tool to be referred to by Euro-nationalists. According to this, in spite of sub-groups and linguistic fault-lines' between them, the fact that almost all European languages belong to the Indo-European family provides at least a "tenuous interrelationship" across these languages. 46

41 Jordan, op. cit., p. 6. However, he admits that even this cultural entity had no clear boundaries

and had intermingled with other culture areas in broad transitional zones. Rougemont, op. cit.; Hill, op. cit.

as _{Hill, op. cit., p. 14.}

44 Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World, London,

Collins, 1987,p. 191.

45 Gladwyn, op. cit., p. 22; Reinhard Wittram, Russia and Europe, London, Thames and Hudson,

1973.

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More and more interactions and cultural contacts through education, tourism, mass media, etc. can decrease the negative effect of language difference.

These ideas were strengthened by depicting elements different from so-called European ones as 'the Other' . Moving on from the functional role of `Other' in the construction and evolution of identity, some people tend to refer to various external or internal Others to determine the substance of the European identity. Groups ranging from Muslims and the peoples of the colonial territories, that are all seen as infidels or non-civilised, to some ethnic and cultural minorities such as Jews and Freemasons have been presented as the Other of European civilisation and Europeanness."

3. The Criticism of Euro-nationalist Approach to EU Common Identity.

Surely, this is a kind of `genealogy of process' and each of these links in the genealogy has an influence on today's Europe." In other words, without the cumulative legacy of classical thought, today's European ideals of liberal democracy, pluralism, commitment to `open society', rule of law, and equality of civic-legal entitlements could not be achieved." However, all these attributes of today's Europe are, at the same time, the result of all those losses, conflicts and diversities. The reality of Hitler, as an example from recent history, was but an expensive experience in the history of Europe and its prominent (and direct) impact on the development of today's Europe cannot be overlooked.

Perhaps, though again in different circumstances, the construction of national identity can be considered as a model in certain aspects for understanding European integration, i.e. the role of elites and the use of communication technologies.5° However, for the EU to be a political community, it does not seem rational to determine the identity of Europe purely through the modality of the nation-state or any other backward-looking approach. The main reasons underpinning this negative stance against the Euro-nationalist approach will be explained in detail.

First of all, from a theoretical perspective, the EU is neither a competitor or substitute nor exact follower of nation-states. It is not a competitor or substitute because, as Kostakopoulou emphasises, with the emergence of such a non-statal form of governance, `a gain in functions at one level does not necessarily imply

Iver B. Neumann and Jennifer M. Welsh, "The Other in European Self-definition: An Addendum to the Literature on International Society," Review of International Studies, Vol. 17 (1991).

48Cris Shore, "A History of the European Union's Cultural Policy,' Is European Union

Irreversible?, University of Bath European Research Institute Launch Conference, 1995, p. 55. 49 David Beetham and Christopher Lord, Legitimacy and the European Union, Essex, Addison

Wesley Longman, 1998, p. 119.

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12 HAKAN SAMUR

a loss at another' but requires an inevitable reconsideration of state-oriented political terminology and traditional organising principles such as sovereignty and citizenship, especially in the light of world-scale changes in political, economic and social arenas

51 It

is not the follower of nation statehood, either. The saliency of the EU project stems not only from being different from the previous attempts to unify Europe, but also and predominantly from being the first and unique example of such a trans-national political community project. Even the most primitive form of European integration concretised in European Coal and Steel Community had been described as `sui generis' in terms of the relationships between the actors as well as the legal and institutional structure. 52 European-level analysis in social science cannot be maintained with the same methodology and concepts as is applied to the nation-state level and necessitates a new perspective. 53

Therefore, the rhetoric of culture, tradition and history as homogenising and legitimating factors in the nation-state cannot be carried to the EU level.

From a more practical perspective, we should give emphasis to a critical reading of the historical references that the Euro-nationalists use in their arguments. First of all, the `amount', `originally European' character and 'the continuity' of these historical references for a common European culture have rarely been questioned - just accepted a priori or distorted by their advocates. 54 Nonetheless, these three aspects have been severely criticised by others. To these critics, this Eurocentric approach was aiming to narrate European history through Western European identity on the level of a `homogeneous space' and `linear time' and was overlooking Byzantium, Eastern Europe, Muslim Spain, Jews and even North-Western Europe. 55 While doing this, it

`was drawing from its storehouse of components, retaining one or rejecting another according to the ideological needs of the moment.' . 56 Fontana affirms this point in his Distorted Past: `To justify their superiority, Europeans have speculated about the miracle of their history and the reasons - that is to say, the merits - which might explain

"Theodora Kostakopoulou, Citizenship, Identity and Immigration in the European Union, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2001, p. 5.

52 Emst B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1958, p. 526. 53 Bernd Hamm, "Europe-A Challenge to the Social Sciences," International Social Science

Journal, Vol. 131 (1992); Shore, op. cit., 2000.

54Black and Shore, op. cit., p. 294.

55 Talal Asad, "Muslims and European Identity: Can Europe Represent Islam?" Anthony Pagden

(ed.), The Idea of Europe: From Antiquity to the European Union, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 216.

56Samir Amin, Eurocentrism, London, Zed, 1989, p. 90.

"Josep Fontana, The Distorted Past: A Reinterpretation of Europe, Oxford, Blackwel1,1995, p. 161.

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Regarding the `originally European' character, neither Greek nor Roman civilisation can be thought of without considering their reciprocal contacts and impacts with the Orient. Amin questions this originality through examples: 58 The Eurocentric approach covered up the impacts of the ancient Orient (Egyptians, Phoenicians, etc.) on ancient Greece and even overlooked the non-European origins of Christianity to annex both Greek civilisation and Christianity to Europe. The territories of the Roman Empire were also not limited to Europe, as most of them lay in Asia and in North Africa. 59 Said argues that the idea of Western civilisation cannot be thought of as a Western phenomenon in a pure sense without ignoring the impacts of conquest, immigration, travel and the merging of peoples throughout history on the present mixed identities of the Western nations 6 0 Therefore, Karlsson suggests that Greek and Roman civilisations can best be described as "Mediterranean cultures" because of their centres in Asia Minor, Africa and the Middle East. 6I If these Oriental roots could not be covered up, then there were attempts to distort them from the other way around i.e. describing the people of ancient Egypt as from the white race. 62 In addition, whatever else constituted such a European success story, the fact that it gained ascendancy in only the Western part of the continent is overlooked, deliberately or not. Bearing the unsettled boundaries of Europe in mind, the haziness of such a cultural history for the whole of Europe can be understood better.

On the other hand, regarding the continuity of those historical references, the fact that the Renaissance embraced ancient Greco-Roman civilisation after more than fifteen centuries of the medieval period casts the continuity of so-called European culture into obscurity. 68 Regarding the continuity, Delanty demonstrates another series of events in the idea of Europe 'from the crusading genocides of medieval Christendom to the systematic extermination of other civilisations by European imperialism to the gas chambers of the Nazis and the pogroms of ethnic cleansing of the new nationalisms in the post-Cold War period.' 64

"Amin, op. cit.

" Anthony Pagden, "Europe: Conceptualizing a Concept," Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Idea of Europe: From Antiquity to the European Union, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 45.

"Edward Said, Orientalism, Reprinted, New York, Vintage Books, 1994, p. 347.

61Ingmar Karlsson, "European Identity and the Enlargement of the European Union," Christopher

Lord (ed.), Central Europe: Core or Periphery?, Copenhagen, Copenhagen Business School, 2000, p. 167.

62 Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, London, Vintage, 1991.

63 Amin, op. cit.

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14 HAKAN SAMUR

The enlisting of Christianity by Euro-nationalists in forming a common EU identity should be questioned in more detail. It is true that in the medieval era, Christianity was almost synonymous with Europe and a basic factor in providing cohesion between the powers of the times against the common enemy of Muslims in the East. Nevertheless, this emergence of Christianity as a culturally unifying factor was predominantly the result of the feudalist structure in Western Europe, in which there was no central political authority. Put another way, Christianity had become instrumental to the legitimacy-seeking efforts of the political figures against an external menace. Otherwise, Christianity itself is not a homogenous factor because it had three major sub-groups that led to long-standing tensions and religious wars during the medieval period.65 Furthermore, it is not sensible to carry the same conviction about the pre-eminent place of Christianity in European projects into subsequent centuries. One of the main rationales that drove the Enlightenment philosophers to the rediscovery of Greco-Roman antiquity to formulate a new and secular European identity was their opposition to the dominance of the medieval Christian Church. 66 In the age of imperialism, the instrumental role of Christianity (manipulating it for legitimacy) was re-employed along with other elements - freedom, progress and civilisation - but this time within a global context and to construct a `hegemonic Christian identity' to justify and strengthen imperialist ventures. 67

The identification of Europe with Christianity was, at the same time, a result of `violent homogenisation' that recalls the forcible efforts to convert, repress and persecute religious minorities in the medieval age as well as thereafter. 68 Mikkeli portrays the contemporary attempts to attach European identity mainly to the humanist and Christian tradition as 'an empty rhetoric on a continent torn by nationalist conflicts and religious wars' and even as `absurd' in respect of the two world wars and the Holocaust of the near past. 69 Similarly, to use Christendom to define Europe, in Waever's vision, is a long way from comprehending the larger meaning of integration in the core countries but is mostly popular in the periphery and results in unrest and conflicts, as in Western Europe with immigrants and in Yugoslavia.' To put it differently, if Christianity continues to be employed in defining the common EU identity, then the war in the former Yugoslav federation, just one decade ago, offers a clue about the future of the continent. This case is decisive not only because it is reminiscent of the historical conflicts between Christians and Muslims but, at

65 Ibid.,

66 Amin, op. cit., p. 105.

67 Delanty, op. cit., p. 96. Ibid., p. 43.

69 Mikkeli, op. cit., p. 203.

7° Ole Waever, "Identity, Integration and Security," Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 48, No. 2 (1995), p. 408.

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the same time, as the Greek support for Serbians on the ground of the common Orthodox orientations of the two nations demonstrated, it is reminiscent of the cleavages within Christianity. Therefore, it is likely to call the relating of EU identity to Christendom into question.

In addition, first secularisation and then modernism and port-modernism as a condition as well as a way of thinking, day by day, have diverted or weakened the link between people and religion (Christianity) in the West European countries as well as in the other developed countries. Comparison of the responses to a Eurobarometer survey question asked both in 1973 and 1991 in EC9 countries underlines this argument for the near past (Table 1). 71 As seen, belonging to a religion has considerably declined in the EC countries within two decades. Even if identification with Christianity continues, affiliation to a Church has declined and some Churches have even had trouble in maintaining their buildings and recruiting clergy. 72

Table 1: Religious Affiliation in the European Community, 1973 and 1991 Question: Do you consider yourself as belonging to a particular religion? _

Year F B NL G(W) I L DK IR GB EC9 1973 11 14 38 5 0 6 16 1 24 11 1991 30 28 51 23 10 6 21 4 35 22 %91- %73 +19 +14 +13 +18 +10 +0 +5 +3 +9 +11

_Entries are the percentages of interviewees who regard themselves as not belonging to a particular religion.

Source: European Community Study 1973; Eurobarometer 36, Autumn 1991.

A final point about the religion issue is that during the medieval centuries when Christianity was synonymous with Europe, the population of Muslims (even in Spain, Southern Italy and Sicily), Jews, pagans and other non-Christian groups was rather low, with negligible political power. 73 However the situation today is rather different. Overlooking the presence of a more than 10 per cent

71 Karlheinz Reif, "Cultural Convergence and Cultural Diversity as Factors in European Identity,"

Soledad Garcia (ed.), op. cit., p. 137.

72 David Mallion, "European Society: Power to the People," David Gowland, Basil O'Neill and

Richard Dunphy (eds.), The European Mosaic: Contemporary Politics, Economics and Culture, Essex, Pearson, 2000, p. 53.

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16 HAKAN SAMUR

non-Christian component 74 among the 380 million population of EU-15, with their own cultures, praying halis and organisations as well as businesses in the daily life of EU countries, would seem to be a very critical mistake when trying to establish a peaceful community.

The ethno-national discourse for EU identity is problematic not only because of those selected points of the past but also because of the shortage of some other points that are imperative for the construction of national identities. Unlike existing national identities, which were constructed from shared customs, traditions, a common language, and a common historical background as well as from legal entitlements, a unique economic structure, conscious administrative and cultural policies; on the European level, the EU does not possess such homogenising factors on which to base a shared identity. 75 With respect to `vivid', `accessible', `well-established', `long popularised', and `widely believed' features of national identifications, Smith claims that Europe is deficient both as an idea and as a process. 76Moreover, one author counts some negative yet crucial conditions for the construction of national identities: long-lasting conflicts, state violence, authoritarianism and war. 77

In particular, language is a salient factor in cultural interaction, and linguistic diversity makes it difficult to communicate across national boundaries. As mentioned before, according to Anderson, the elimination of many different dialects and languages and the retention of some as the print languages was the main instrument in the construction of national consciousness. He was certainly not alone in assigning the language factor to the most critical place in the process of nation building. Among the external symbols of nationality, van Gennep claims that language is "the most striking and pugnacious symbol of differentiation, continuity and collective cohesion". 78

The very employment of language in the creation of homogenous nation-states, in contradiction, increased heterogeneity in Europe. Being part of the same linguistic family (Indo-European) does not remove, as some claimed, 79 the prominent linguistic fault-lines between Latin, Germanic, and Slav subfamilies and this prevents an effective cross-national interaction. That is why gathering the family of all European languages under a common umbrella does not screen off the reality that, apart from minority and other state-level languages, the EU-

743.50 per cent Muslims, 0.04 per cent Jews and 7.50 per cent other denominations and

non-religious population. Gerhard Robbers, "Religious Freedom in Europe," <www.gobernacion.gob.mx/archnov/ponencia8.pdf >

75 Beetham and Lord, op. cit.; Garcia, op. cit., p. 3; John McCormick, The European Union:

Politics and Policies, Colorado, West View Press, 1996, p. 95.

76 Anthony Smith, op. cit., p. 62.

77 Shore, op. cit., p. 225.

78 Joseph R. Llobera, "Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Nationalism in Europe," Victoria A Goddard et al (eds.), op. cit., p. 98.

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15 had 13 official state languages, 11 of which were also official languages of the Union. 66 per cent of the citizens in EU-15 were monolingual, while 10 per cent were speaking at least two foreign languages 8 0 In short, the homogenising effect of common language for the nation construct is an unattainable target for Euro-nationalism.

Besides, black people were the victims of the apartheid, and imperialist face of Europe and other non-white races were the peripheral masses in the past. But now, depending on different statistics, 10-12 per cent of the European population are non-white and most of these are black. This rate increases to 15- 40 per cent in some cosmopolitan cities of the continent like London, Lisbon, Brussels, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. 81 Giving emphasis to essentialist and culturalist points in forming a common identity just exacerbates the increasing xenophobia and racist currents in West European countries.

In addition to these various differences, European diversity has also included political divisions and economic and social disparities among the nations and regions that all have negative impact on the Euro-nationalist dreams.

As another point, most of the data used in this article to defy the arguments of Euro-nationalists belong to the EU-15. The inclusion of new countries through Eastern Enlargement has increased (and will continue to increase) the

heterogeneity of Europe in terms of language, ethnicity and religiorı that will all

make it more difficult to pursue the ideal of constructing a common European identity through a Euro-nationalist approach. Besides, with the inclusion of the

Central and East European Countries (CEECs), the eastern boundaries

of

the

EU are not going to be settled yet. The reciprocal minority populations between the EU members of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Romania on the one side and Ukraine, Belarus and, especially, Russia on the other side will make it difficult to say: this is the boundary of a European community. The specific conditions and relations between these two groups of countries or between member state CEECs and their fellow citizens among their eastward neighbours will set hurdles in the way of establishing many common policies, ranging from visas to markets, that are very important instruments for the formation of a common EU identity. Then, this will be likely to increase not Euronationalism but ethnic nationalism and potential unrest.

Finally, whether such a pan-European project is conceived either to co-exist with or supersede the national identities, it is quite problematic and inevitably causes a clash between these two emotionally and culturally loaded effective orientations. Thus, for the foreseeable future, the flowering of such a

8° Ingmar Karlsson, "European Identity and the Enlargement of the European Union," Christopher Lord (ed.), op. cit., p. 173.

81 Komboa Ervin, "The Changing Face of Europe: Racism, Immigration and the Coming Police

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18 HAKAN SAMUR

European identity will not be accomplished at the expense of existing national identities that stili take precedence in people's life, in a zero-sum relationship. 82

The EU has emerged as a reality of `consumption and production' but not of a `culturally standardized community.' 83

Conclusion

After the Second World War, a final and seemingly the most serious attempt in history has been launched to achieve European integration. The fully-fledged political community ideal underlying this attempt needs to be supported by the construction of a common identity and consciousness amongst people. Because of giving priorities to economic developments in the initial years, the EU neglected this aspect of unification. Since the 1970s, the view has begun to change and, particularly by the 1980s, a serious discussion has begun to find out what the common EU identity is. Euro-nationalist approach has been one of the main components of this discussion.

The starting point for the Euro-nationalist argument was the cultural and political saliency and the attractiveness of nationalism in constructing a collective identity and legitimacy for sovereign states in modern times. In the same way, referring to so-called common historical-cultural patterns, they aimed to draw up a European identity in a particularistic form of Euronationalist understanding.

Nonetheless, as shown in this article, the EU lacked most of the nation-state-like identity-shaping tools to create her own identity, an effective feeling of common fate and homogeneity. Furthermore, the selective arguments, which emphasise the successes of the common European heritage, tend to ignore the failures or deficiencies of the same heritage. Those general historical, cultural and civilisational references employed by the supporters of the Euro-nationalist approach were, at the same time, sources of differentiation and setbacks in constructing a common EU identity. Thus, there seems no possibility of fostering an identity for the EU in the sence of culture and historical proximity. In sum, regarding a Euro-nationalist project, with the words of Delanty, European history cannot produce unity from diversity."

82 Anthony Smith, "A Europe of Nations - or the Nation of Europe?," Journal of Peace

Research, Vol. 30, No. 2 (1993), p. 134.

83 Karlsson, op. cit., p. 168.

Başlık: EURO-NATIONALISM: AN IMPASSE FOR THE EUROPEAN UNIONYazar(lar):SAMUR, Hakan Cilt: 4 Sayı: 1 Sayfa: 001-018 DOI: 10.1501/Avraras_0000000079 Yayın Tarihi: 2004 PDF

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