ABSTRACT
European identity, designed by nations and for nation-states. It will open it to what I have called in chapter two the new practices of citizenship.
9.1.1 A combination of the subsidiarity check with a view of the institutional system of the European Union as an entangled hierarchy justifies perceiving a classic model of European citizenship as an identity threat. The subsidiarity check led to the following conclusions: it discouraged the need for European identity; forecast a reduction of nationalism in new European Union members from Eastern Europe; supported a further reduction of the connection between rights and identity in national citizenship of the Member States; and it also gave legal support to federalizing forms of sub-Member State nationalism. The European Union is meeting the subsidiarity test when claiming a special competence to combat racism and xenophobia. Overall, this interpretation of subsidiarity will provide an opportunity to promote European Union citizenship independently of identity, open to local constructions of citizenship as identity, or of citizenship through identity.
