Europe of Nations

Progressive supranational integration in Europe raises the question about the survival of the nation state and the demise on the nation as the principal and highest focus of collective identity. This essay discusses, as background, the processes of modern nation states and then attempts to establish whether the same mechanism may apply to some form of supranational integration. It dismisses Anthony D: Smith’s vertical as well as lateral paths of this process as applicable to a Pan-European nation formation because Europe as a whole lacks ethnic homogeneity as their fundamental prerequisite. The analysis of the history of European nationalism, nation formation and the role of the nation state on the one hand, and of the forces, processes, and institutions of European supranational integration leads the author, as it does most students of these phenomena, to two conclusions: (1) that the nation as the focal point of collective identity has a secure place in today’s Europe and the continents foreseeable future, and (2) that, as Josep R. Liobera points out, the European Union “will not abolish the sovereignty of the state, though undoubtedly certain aspects of sovereignty will continue to be put voluntary into a joint pool of sovereignty” exercised by supranational authorities.