Time to Get Real: The Past is Not our Future

I have spent quite some time in different countries
and talked to people from all over Europe and
outside. What I have experienced made the
insistance on national sovereignty that many still
support seem more and more outdated to me if it's
not even a misunderstanding of identity itself.

It is not the location of our birth and the country surrounding it we relate to the most but a society sharing common interests and values. This has strongly correlated with geography in the past since communication and transport was simply impractical to exercise frequently if you don’t count the tiny fraction on top of the wealth pyramid. But now the world has changed, especially in wealthy regions like Europe. It is unrealistic to assume this development would go backward again. We just have to ask how Europeans can profit from it.

What stays however are these interests and values. Most Europeans believe in peace, human equality, justice, freedom and democracy. This is the true reason of our union today, not the fact Europe is recognized as an individual continent, a fundamental difference to national identity. History has brought them together, nothing more.
But uniting Europe holds many more opportunities to enrich and evolve the European society. Cultural and traditional differences are invaluable resources of diversity only to be accessed by the key of tolerance. The unification of free markets has progressed to the current state but the political union seems to be at odd in the face of the Eurocrisis. While economic globalization and even stronger, ‘Europeanisation’, has tied our continent together and spread wealth and peace, we have neglected to connect our people strong enough to reflect this unity in a European public being diverse in culture but aware of its shared values and interests. 

The National State is becoming less attractive

For long the global economic dominance of the western hemisphere had not been questioned, conveniently making the lack of a European society seem inconsequential. This situation has finally come to an end.
Not only have certain kinds of market and debt liberalizations crossed red lines, emerging countries around the world are even challenging the superiority of western economy and concerning Europe, the economic crisis has put the fallacies of European Integration on open display. While Europe has united its markets almost inseparably, politicians struggle between acknowledging and widening this progress at the same time as serving separate societies. 

This gap is no longer sustainable. Steps towards further political integration are negotiated already. Ultimately I believe there are only two ways towards a stable Europe: Separating the markets or uniting our societies.
The former resembles a reversal of globalization, shifting foreign trade back to primarily rely on domestic trade in order to put national politics in sufficient control of the country they govern. No doubt, the result would be devastating. We strongly depend on foreign trade within Europe, probably more than most people are aware of. Single European nations with their small population and, assuming we choose this way, a limitation to domestic economy, should not hope to be respected by strong countries with much larger populations around the world many of which neither sharing our interests nor values.

Democracy depends on the the state of Europe

Something that has not been discussed that much so far is the political contagion we would be prone to when non-democratic powers lead the global stage. In my opinion this longterm effect is widely underestimated or ignored.
Emerging nationalist movements close their eyes to the transformation the globalization has caused to the world. We can't just turn history back to a comfortable point where no one could match the West. They exploit fear of the foreign to make people shy away from the opposite way out.
So is it really impossible to unite our societies instead? National societies have not exactly been pushed to integrate. Pushing people is not a good idea anyway. So what is there to begin with?

There are enough commonalities 

Many Europeans like Europe. They like to travel without obstacles, they like to pay with just one currency, they speak at least some English to communicate, they like and apparently even stand ready to defend a free internet across borders. And if they have ever left our continent they have experienced being referred to as Europeans because Europe is known for something quite rare in the world: equality, justice, freedom and democracy.
I think there are enough people who like to be Europeans and could identify with other Europeans if the European media landscape and leading political rhetoric would not be so fragmented along borders that should be open, inviting everyone to deliberately move between different perspectives like they can on the national level. Multilingualism is a hurdle, yes, but technology is a solution, if not now then soon.

The European network of Facebook

It is my belief the internet is a unique powerful tool, catalyst and network to connect people, spread a message and find a common voice. We have experienced the cross-border impact it can have in recent years around the world. 

The society of today is not the same as the one of tomorrow

Social media has been existent just for a couple of years, the electronization of our civilization is at the very beginning and its accessibility and penetration rises significantly every year. It’s impossible to make certain predictions but if there is any space where Europeans can unite first, it will be most likely online. We should keep that in mind and politicians should shouldn't forget that the online generation will grow into leadership in the near future.

The looming temptation of a better past is an illusion. Europe has not been a better place twenty years ago or ever before. Re-emphasizing differences will only catalyze all kinds of inequalities we thought to have left behind.