Is Europe still worth fighting for? Allegiance, identityand integration paradigms revisited

Abstract

Allegiance to ‘Europe’ is more problematic than, say, commitment to a nation-state, due to the nature of the European polity. The EU cannot claim to possess attributes that provoke strong (or at least significant) identification from its citizens.1 This is why the legal figure of European citizenship – especially when one focuses on the affiliative2 dimension of citizenship – presents a most interesting case in the study of the interactions between international and public law, between domestic and transnational identities, and between allegiance to nation and to community of nations. Show more