European Identity

Abstract

Obviously, each culture defines itself in relation to other cultures. In the European Union nowadays the European identity is a status other than a common luck of a certain group of persons or the feeling of a group or culture, person. In the EU, European identity is based on four concepts: EU identity; Europeanisation; Transnationalism; Cosmopolitanism. European identity is a social construction. Europe is a stronger place when its citizens work together both within their states and between them. The two levels of identity - the national and the European - can give Europe's citizens the best of both worlds: patriotic belonging alongside European cooperation and communality. However European identity is about people. It is about connecting European citizens who live within the European Union that share kind of values of democracy, respecting human rights in accordance with the acquis communautaire, an opening free trade market such as free movement of goods, persons, services and capitals.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n2s1p143