ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the EU cannot reach the significantly higher levels of economic integration and centralization of power without also building a robust community. That is, a community that has a core of shared values and a measure of loyalty that, in key matters, trump the commitments of the EU citizens to their national communities, the member states. This does not mean a political union, which entails stronger supra national political institutions and more democratic representation than currently exists, but rather the formation of the kind of ethos that now binds people within their national communities on the EU level. Such a community can allow for considerable normative diversity, as long as it is framed and contained by a core of share values and bonds of affinity that under gird commitments to the common good.
