To what extent has the European Union been successful in "establishing" a coherent European identity

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Introduction

European identity, meaning unification or integration of Europe, is easily described as European residents have the ideas where they really belong to, Europe or just German, France or others. Nowadays, when Europe is talked about, people involuntarily associate it with the European Union. Perhaps the main reason is the enlargement of the European Union. Now the EU includes 27 countries, more than half the whole European countries and almost all the powerful countries have already joined the EU for years. Thus in some way we can say that the EU unifies the Europe. At this time, even though the EU cannot be regarded as a real nation, the EU also hopes a kind of patriotism existing in the whole Europe, and in the post-time Winston Churchill had already illustrated this view that “Why should there not be a European Group which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism?” (Wikipedia(a)) Under the uniform administration of the EU, the European identity seems to appear again after the Holy Roman Empire economically, politically and socially, but mainly in the economic aspect.

What the EU has done?

Economics

“Karl Marx viewed economic change as a revolutionary process, and one which determined social and political structures.” (Parker, E 2003) Thus the EU firstly chooses to take efforts to effectively manage the EU economy. Apart from the single currency and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the greatest achievement in the EU history is the single market. It is about 15 years that the objective, which abolishing all physical, technical, and tax-related barriers to free movement put forward in 1985, was achieved. The aim of that is to improve industry and commerce within a larger economic area on a scale with the United State. (Europa(e)).

First of all, there is no border any more. All borders controls within the EU on goods have been abolished, together with customs controls on people. Thanks to the principle of mutual recognition of national rules that all the member states must allow the product manufactured in any member state to be sold in the local market, the enterprises expand the EU market instead of just focusing on local market quickly. Besides that, the EU also takes tax into consideration in order to make the single market work equally and effectively. Another important point is the free labour market. With the common passport, people can work wherever they want, which also makes up for the labour shortage in some member states. On the other side, the EU guarantees the quality of all the goods in any market. All the consumers benefit from the same high level of protection with accordant to the consumer policy. All the economic policies concerned above not only provide more profits to both the enterprise and consumers, but also have an expansionary effect on the cohesion of Europe at the same time.

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Politics

The underlying reason of establishing the EU is to ensure the peace in Europe after WWII. The breaking down of Berlin wall is seen as the major landmark in the peaceful way of the EU. Therefore, there is no doubt that no wars involved the whole continent any more since the EU established. Thus this aim is effectively put into practice. In addition, two more policies are staring at the political issues---the common foreign and security policy in the Maastricht treaty of 1992 and European Security and Defense Policy in the Nice treaty of 2000. These two ideas ...

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The author submitted this as a B-standard essay, which surprises me. What really holds it back is the very poor standard of English, which means that a lot of the statements are factually incorrect and the argument is extremely difficult to follow. In general terms, structuring an essay on identity around the goals of the EU and the reach the institution has had into people's lives is not a bad idea, but it needs a lot more definition, factual references, and a better standard of expression.