European Union

Facing backlash from unions and business groups, Romania’s government is under fire over an austerity plan critics say punishes workers while doing little to fix systemic issues.

Germany's proposal for joint patrols has been flatly rejected by Poland, whose defence minister insists national borders will be guarded solely by Polish forces.

A weekend of overlapping party congresses is set to shake Spanish politics, as PM Sánchez faces mounting pressure over corruption scandals and the opposition seizes the moment to push for early elections.

Italy wants the EU to curb airline pricing tricks it says are hurting island residents and misleading consumers across the bloc.

The EU and Moldova hold their first-ever summit on Friday – but even pro-enlargement countries are hesitant to let Chișinău leapfrog Ukraine's stalled bid for membership.

Sweden's 21 regions currently decide medicines purchasing independently, which could be problematic in acute situations, such as a pandemic, or war.

Denmark will have the chair in endless Council meetings and trilogues, but the presidency is a baton, not a magic wand.

Spokespersons for Parliament and for the political groups will hold a briefing on the 7 - 10 July plenary session, on Friday at 11.00 in Parliament’s Anna Politkovskaya press room.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Spokespersons for Parliament and for the political groups will hold a briefing on the 7 - 10 July plenary session, on Friday at 11.00 in Parliament’s Anna Politkovskaya press room.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

If the US leaves a permanent hole in Western support for Ukraine, the EU "will have to fill" it, the Danish premier said.

The European Commission’s proposed 2040 climate target offers industry some welcome additional flexibility by allowing limited use of international carbon credits, creating a valuable link with the growing UN-administered carbon market, says IETA.

The political attachment many Europeans feel towards the EU has become increasingly fragile. In the 2024 European elections, just half of eligible voters cast their ballots, and the rise of Eurosceptic parties signals a growing erosion of trust. At the same time EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen sees in contrast to Putin and Trump, a “once-in-a-generation chance to build a stronger, more secure and more prosperous Europe”. Yet this depends not only on institutional reforms but on addressing a deeper cultural and political void: A European political identity. 

I suggest a critically realistic and interpretive perspective, informed by phenomenological insights: political identity cannot be prescribed, it must evolve through lived experience, shared meaning, and resonant practices. 

No Demos on the Horizon 

While numerous theories of political identity exist, the term itself often remains vague, inconsistently defined, and conceptually overloaded. Closely tied to this is the debate over a European demos, the idea of a common political people. Yet this concept, too, is based on diverging definitions and nation-state ideal types. 

For some, the demos is simply the sum of eligible voters within a democratic system, as argued by Jochen Roose. Others, such as Gerard Delanty or Fritz Scharpf, argue that it presupposes linguistic and cultural homogeneity. By this standard, Europe falls short: it lacks a shared language, common history, religion, educational system, and unified public sphere. 

In contrast deliberative thinkers, notably Jürgen Habermas, reject the idea of the demos as a pre-political condition. Instead, they argue, it can emerge from political practice and civic participation. Daniel Innerarity goes even further, envisioning the EU as capable of developing a post-demos model: a pluralistic stakeholder structure that embraces difference not as a barrier, but as a constitutive feature. 

But regardless of theoretical leanings, a firmly rooted, common European demos, understood as a politically capable and solidaristic community, “is not even in sight”, as Dieter Grimm already stated in 1995. Three decades on, that observation still holds. 

Output Alone is not Enough  

What follows from this? Joseph Weiler is cautiously optimistic: “Although there is no demos now, the possibility for the future is not precluded a priori”. Fritz Scharpf, by contrast, draws a more sobering conclusion from the “no-demos thesis”: without a demos, there can be no input legitimacy. The EU then can only rely on its problem-solving capacity, the so-called output legitimacy. Yet while this argument is logically consistent, it is functionally limited: it does not resolve the EU’s democratic deficit but rather renders it chronically persistent. 

The demos, however, is not just a normative ideal. It is essential for the acceptance of majority decisions in pluralistic societies. Democratic processes inevitably produce political losers. Without a sense of collective belonging, there is little willingness to accept decisions that contradict one’s own interests. This, however, is the very basis for solidarity-driven action: fiscal transfers and taxation, security cooperation or the joint management of crises all require a minimal degree of shared self-location.  

Yet between the absence of a fully integrated political people and complete fragmentation lies a political space in which a shared European identity could develop as a functional substitute below the demos ideal. Interestingly the EU has once recognised this, aiming in the first article of its treaties to create “an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe”, not a singular people. As following two empirical cases show, the EU has not just failed to fill this space – it is widening the very gaps it needs to bridge. 

“We” Against the “Others” 

Fault lines also appeared with the issue of migration policies. Poland and Hungary have consistently voted against EU migration reforms addressing binding relocation quotas as affronts to their national sovereignty. What initially appeared as a moral divide with the Commission and Western states blaming Eastern obstruction, has since become a generalised trend towards national retreats. In 2025, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Sweden, Belgium, and notably Germany, reintroduced internal border controls in response to migrant flows. Germany’s move, which drew criticism from Poland, illustrates how former proponents of EU migration solidarity now prioritise domestic legitimacy and border sovereignty – A erosion of mutual trust and symbolic cohesion within the Union. 

The return of the Russia question underpins this erosion further. After the end of the cold war, East–West divisions were already palpable but rhetorically glossed over under the banner of the European idea. A telling moment came with the Second Gulf War: while millions in Western Europe marched under the slogan “Not in my name”, expressing a postnational, pacifist ethos, while Eastern European governments, shaped by recent memories of Soviet domination, actively supported the U.S.-led intervention, seeking security through transatlantic alignment. The cultural and political rift was evident, yet the EU was able to project an image of harmonious “post- and supranational civility”, as Wolfgang Streeck notes. In fact, the slogan “Not in my name” itself illustrates the early problem: lots of “I” is not the same as a “we”, however many there are. Today, the rhetoric of unity no longer masks tensions – it enforces them. The EU increasingly defines itself as a bloc of democratic forces aligned against internal adversaries. Critics of integration from East or West, are increasingly blamed as allies of an external adversary, namely Russia. When EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calls for a “coalition of the willing”, it demonstrates that unity no longer arises through internal democratic negotiation, but through predefined output goals – and through the exclusion of those who deviate from them. 

“Us for Ourselves” 

Both cases show that what the EU emerges is not the absence of a political identity, but the emergence of a fragile, exclusionary identity, reactive rather than reflexive. A sustainable European identity, however, requires not an “us against them”, but an “us for ourselves”. 

Normatively, we might ask: Can a politically enacted European identity below the demos threshold foster democratic acceptance – not by closing the input-legitimacy gap, but by making political loss, dissent, and redistribution more bearable? Theoretically, how can identity be understood not as a fixed attribute or cultural ideal, but as something enacted through practice and shaped by the structural conditions that make collective agency possible or impossible? Empirically, where does the EU constrain such conditions, and where might potential lie for more grounded, collectively enacted forms of identification to emerge? 

The post Not a Demos, Not Yet a People: Towards a Grounded European Identity appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The interior ministry said it was the first deportation of a Syrian directly to Syria in about 15 years, and Austria was the "first European country to officially deport a Syrian criminal directly to Syria in recent years".

Newsletter - 7-10 July 2025 - Strasbourg plenary session

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

European Parliament auditors flag questionable spending from French Rassemblement National.

Current draft criteria jeopardise the production of a potential source of clean fuel, they argue.

As of 3 July and after a long legal back-and-forth, Lime's bright green micromobility units can no longer be activated in the Belgian capital.

The deal will scrap or reduce duties on nearly all trade flows, including key agricultural products like Brazilian poultry, Argentinian beef, and Norwegian salmon.

The EU Commission has set a new climate protection target: a 90 percent reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 1990 levels, by 2040. As of 2036, EU member states will be able to purchase up to three percentage points of their reduction target with credits from environmental projects in countries outside the EU. These "international credits" in particular are a source of controversy in Europe's press.