Thursday, June 27, 2013
C3.17 (Oudemanhuispoort)
Over the past few decades, the policies pursued to facilitate a shared sense of Europeanness among citizens of the EU did not generate the expected level of commitment to a shared post-national identity. Some argue that this situation has worsened especially after the 2008 financial crisis, since the majority of the Europeans feel that the European leadership has failed them. Particularly among the citizens of crisis-stricken countries, there is a general decline in commitment to the EU as a political, economic and social project. Across these settings, political parties that put the emphasis on nationalist projects and ideals managed to increase their vote share and did not refrain from openly voicing their skepticism vis-à-vis a shared European identity.Using data from the EUROBAROMETER surveys between 1992-2012, this paper explores the impact of the 2008 global economic crisis on European identification processes. In doing so, we pay special attention to transnational mobility patterns. Existing data from recent wave of surveys show that following the economic crisis, the physical mobility of Europeans exhibits a fluctuating pattern. How does that influence commitment to a shared post-national identity? In exploring this question, we specifically look at social welfare based mobility (i.e. education, work and healthcare related movement of individuals) patterns within the EU before and after the crisis. We expect to observe a strong relationship between a greater preference in favor of common social security policy and readiness for commitment to a shared European identity especially among the movers.
