European identity: between modernity and postmodernity

The purpose of this inquiry is to rethink the concept of European identity within the framework of the Declaration on European Identity and the Charter of European Identity. It will be argued that those documents employ the modernist notion of a centered, rational, stable, autonomous and unified self. However, this idea of the self leads to exclusion and essentialism. In this way, European identity cannot embrace the multiculturalism of European societies. Thus, it should be replaced by a more flexible, dynamic and shifting concept of identity.