ABSTRACT
An empire is not a taxonomy of state but rather a discourse; an expression of power and ambition which is used to endow an artificial political project with sovereignty, legitimacy, superiority, exclusivity, and, most importantly, destiny. It is just not that empire is a discourse but that the most powerful arena in which the discourse manifests is in visual communication and the language of symbols. To understand the European Union (EU) as empire, one must understand its symbols. This chapter examines how symbols express the discourse of empire through synecdoche 'images that can condense the meaning of a whole narrative without linguistic mediation'. The gap between EU elites and citizens is still very large; hence, the chapter examines few connections between elite visions and everyday actions. By examining the iconography on euro currency, the chapter argues that the most frequently-encountered link between EU and citizen is saturated with an imagination which suggests that the EU is nothing less than empire.
