The recent European Parliament Eurobarometer, in contrast to the Commission’s Barometer
from May 2012, provided some unexpected insights into the preferences of the European
citizens: An increasing number of respondents think positive about the EU-membership of
their country and nearly half of the sampled population suggests that intensifying the
Union’s social dimension would influence their sense of belonging.
Taking these results as a plug the panel sheds light on this micro-level of European
integration and tackles the following questions: In how far did European institutions
contribute to a change of consciousness at the national level in the direction of a European
society? Is there a European identity resilient to the crisis or a cross-border solidarity, which
supports the recently adopted distributive financial stability programmes or has the crisis
long overstrained the slowly emerging nested or cross-cutting identities in Europe? Are there
crucial differences between member states in regard to support for and perception of
European integration or does a class divide rather prevail?
Thus, the panel brings together recent key works on European integration in order to discuss
their results both from a theoretical and empirical perspective.