ABSTRACT
The idea of the 'cosmopolitan' as being a 'citizen of the world' rather than of particular states carries a European birthmark. This chapter aims to undertake a preliminary exploration of the European Union (EU) in the cosmopolitan analytic perspective. It illustrates the characteristic of 'governance regime' in relation to the EU's main institutional and constitutional structure and discusses the 'social mixture' characteristic in relation to the EU as a socio-cultural space and a network of European cities. Europe, notably including its 'historic' cities, is the most important and successful continental destination in global tourism, which, in turn is one of the most important, rapidly growing and economically valuable cultural industries in the world. Europe's cities and wider host societies increasingly reflect the changing social mixtures involved in intra-EU and non-EU temporary touristic migration, intra-EU and non-EU economic migration, and non-EU refugee migration.
