ABSTRACT
In this introductory chapter I first take note of the various and confusing
meanings of ‘identity’ that can be found in academic and political discourse
andpropose a phenomenological rather than normative approach to it, based
on a reflexive notion of identity (what the citizens and the elites perceive as
shared values and principles: a process of self-identification). Given the
ineliminable double nature of the European Union (EU) (half a regulated
singlemarket with high integration, half a would-be polity), in the section on
‘Political identity’ I argue that it is only possible for it to possess, if any, a thin, strictly political identity, which does not tend to cancel the national
identities, or to replace Europe’s cultural diversity. As for legitimacy, I stick
to a broad understanding of it based on its conformity with models of good
governance, supported but not able to be replaced by its economic perfor-
mances, and ‘wrapped’ in shared memories and symbols (see the section on
‘Legitimacy’). Why in a union of states identity is still an essential condition
for institutions and policies to be legitimized, and what makes the develop-
ment oa European identity so difficult, is explained in ‘What has identity to do with legitimacy?’. In the conclusion I argue that only the correction and
relativization of old notions about democracy can clear the way for a non-
populistic understanding of it in the would-be polity that is the EU.
