EUROPEAN DEMOS: DEMOCRACY DEFICIT AND NATIONAL FEELINGS

Abstract

The level and scope of European Union (EU) integration activities are showing the aspects of civilizational development with a huge impact on the world system of civilizations and make more evident the fact that the future of EU depends on the attitude of European policy‐makers to the national, cultural, and political identities. Interest in the identities has been reinforced in recent years by the failure of EU Constitutional Treaty and further attempts to reach an agreament about the new Treaty. This failure stimulated cogitations on both the subject of Constitutional Treaty and the features of the European demos. Spirited discussions pointed to the so called “deficits” – “community deficit”, “legitimacy deficit” and, as a consequence, to the “democracy deficit”. Thus EU future can be seen as depending on the removal of these “deficits”. How can this be done under the prevailing political attitude of denationalization? The problem of European demos was aggravated by the enlargement of EU: new Member states are loaded with different historic experience and clearly visible features of national sense. National feelings have been the main force raising people for national liberation movement or national revival. This experience must be taken into account while discussing new political guidelines for the construction of European demos. The social content of demos, including identity, common history and the sense of “unity in diversity”, could be accumulated through the loyalties and bonds of affection to one's nation, culture, language, and historical myths; thus, the attitude of denationalization requires a modification.