Cultural diversity and european integration in conflict and in harmony

This work seeks to shed some light on the relationship between European integration and the diversity of national and regional cultures in Europe. As the integration process lays its grip on sensitive areas such as foreign and security policy or immigration and asylum policies and the single currency replaces national currencies, concerns about the lack of an affective dimension to integration become pressing. Attempts are thus being made to forge a “European identity”, to promote a “peoples’ Europe”. These efforts both signify the realisation that the ultimate limits of the European project are cultural and seek to transcend them. The time of culture has undoubtedly struck for Europe, identity and cultural affiliations being issues on which many decisions are likely to turn in future. In an effort to allay fears that European unification poses a threat to the cultural identities of Europeans, Art 6 (3) of the Maastricht Treaty declares that “The Union shall respect the national identities of its Member States”. As this study shows, the obligation of the Union to protect national and regional identities is not only a moral, but also a legal one, flowing from norms of international law. However, real points of conflict exist between the Union as an economic entity and the diversity of European cultures. Still, this conflict is not our iron fate; harmony between the integration process and the variety of cultural identities in Europe is, on the contrary, the precondition for a common way forward.