ABSTRACT
The political process in which people are participating is much less the construction of a European state than the partial de-nationalization of European countries or their entrance into a postnational era. The most "national" European countries undergo with great anxiety their passage to the post-national era. In many ways, Europe is today less united and specific than it used to be during centuries when Christianity created a cultural community and when intra European wars defined a European political system strengthened by marriages and alliances. Economic argument generally favours open world trade of the sort advocated in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade by third world countries and the United States, and opposed by the European Community. European integration is the best way for European countries to avoid the separation between economic activities and cultural values that is a major threat in post-national societies.
