Vers une communauté européenne de citoyens ? Pour une approche par les sentiments
Résumé
Towards a Citizens' European Community?
Why we need an emotional approach
European studies have given a limited attention to the actual formation of a community at the grass roots between European citizens, concentrating themselves whether on the EU political system or on the loyalty of citizens towards the EU. Throughout this article, we defend the idea that, in a democratic scenario, any ulterior breakthroughs of European integration (in security and defence matters or on ‘Social Europe' for example) call for the existence of such citizens' community. According to David Easton's theory on political systems, such a community partly derives from the existence of positive feelings which are able to link together citizens of different nationalities. Different methods, which are illustrated in the following articles, are mobilized to study the present state of these feelings of community between Europeans. On the whole and for the time being, they point out that most EU citizens nor consider one another as outright strangers, neither as outright fellow citizens.
Why we need an emotional approach
European studies have given a limited attention to the actual formation of a community at the grass roots between European citizens, concentrating themselves whether on the EU political system or on the loyalty of citizens towards the EU. Throughout this article, we defend the idea that, in a democratic scenario, any ulterior breakthroughs of European integration (in security and defence matters or on ‘Social Europe' for example) call for the existence of such citizens' community. According to David Easton's theory on political systems, such a community partly derives from the existence of positive feelings which are able to link together citizens of different nationalities. Different methods, which are illustrated in the following articles, are mobilized to study the present state of these feelings of community between Europeans. On the whole and for the time being, they point out that most EU citizens nor consider one another as outright strangers, neither as outright fellow citizens.
Les études européennes ont jusqu'ici porté une faible attention à la formation effective d'une communauté entre les citoyens européens, pour se concentrer soit sur le système politique de l'UE, soit sur la loyauté de ces derniers envers l'UE comme nouveau centre de pouvoir. Le présent article entend défendre l'idée que, dans un cadre démocratique, toutes les avancées ultérieures de l'intégration européenne (en matière de sécurité et de défense et d' « Europe sociale » en particulier) appellent l'existence d'une telle communauté de citoyens. Cette dernière doit correspondre, en accord avec la théorie de David Easton sur les systèmes politiques, à l'existence de sentiments positifs qui relient les citoyens de diverses nationalités les uns aux autres. Diverses méthodes, utilisées dans les contributions qui suivent cet article introductif, permettent de saisir l'état actuel de ces sentiments de communauté entre Européens. Elles montrent globalement que, pour l'heure, la plupart des ressortissants des pays de l'UE ne se considèrent sans doute plus comme des étrangers, mais qu'ils sont loin de se sentir des concitoyens.