Loving it but not feeling it yet? The state of European identity after the eastern enlargement

Abstract:

The inclusion of 11 new member states from the former Eastern bloc constitutes a significant challenge to the European Union in various respects. Many worry that whatever tenuous ‘European identity’ existed prior to the eastern enlargement, it has now become so diluted that no meaningful European political community can form. We provide an empirical account of the state of European identity after the eastern enlargement through a comparative analysis of affective and cognitive European identity in the old and the new Central and Eastern European member states. Our empirical analyses indicate that while the overall levels of cognitive European identification in the East are indeed lower than in the West, citizens from new member states are just as attached to Europe as citizens from old member states. Most importantly, not only is there no discernable difference in cognitive identification among young Europeans in East and West, but the youngest in the East seem to be even more strongly attached to Europe than their peers in the West.