European identity

Christopher Brewin

pp. 55-73

in: Joe Andrew, Malcolm Crook, Michael Waller (eds), Why Europe? problems of culture and identity I, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

The title of this volume, and the conference which gave rise to it, make the point that European identity is more problematical than national identity. After 1989 the German sense of identity enabled Chancellor Kohl to integrate the Eastern Länder into the Federal Republic despite the resentment of Ossler and Wessler. There was no comparable sense of European identity sufficient for an immediate raising of loans and eventually taxes to integrate Eastern and Central Europe into the new European Union.