European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

84 EUROPEAN IDENTITY. INDIVIDUAL, GROUP AND SOCIETYresolutions, one by the European Council (1983) and another by theCouncil of Ministers of Education (1988).During the decade of the 90s, efforts were intensified to create aEuropean Community Identity based on a sense of belonging to theEuropean culture, making the European dimension a central point ofreference for the efforts of Brussels to recover the popular help for theEuropean project. The Maastrich Treaty ratified the European dimensionof education by granting it a specific mention in the first article of thetreaty. In 1993 the Green Paper of the European Dimension ofEducation emerged. According to this document, the principal objectiveof the European Dimension is to stimulate the awareness of what isconceived as a European culture and common heritage, and toencourage the student body to feel inclined to identify itself asEuropean. It was specifically mentioned that particular efforts tointroduce the European identity in education could not, by any means,be detrimental to the specific national or regional identities. The mainpurpose is to respect regional and national diversity as well as topromote a common cultural heritage. Hansen (1998) pointed out thatmany efforts were made in the European Community to present theissues of national and European identity not as conflicts but ascomplements. These efforts have to confront a double standard. On theone hand within each of the national states we witness a rebirth ofautochthonous or national 3 cultures. On the other hand, the permanentsettlement of emigrants within each one of the Union’s States entails achange in the internal configuration of their populations.Does a European Identity Exist?The construction of a European identity means that people have toincorporate a transnational identity into their national identity. The keyelement for Flouris (1998) in the achievement of a transnationalidentity is the necessity of finding essential characteristics of sharedidentity; people from different nations need to feel security and wish toadhere to a transnational entity without sacrificing their personal ornational identities. For this, there should be conditions facilitated thatallow reinternalised supranational symbols, and sociocultural valuesand attitudes which show cohesion and solidarity to build the newidentity.3In Martiniello (1998), different reasons can be consulted for the rebirth of local,regional, and national cultures.