The current discussion of a future juridical structure for the European Union is turning into a quest for a new European political culture.1 Along with the discussion of the juridical structure an image of ʻEuropean valuesʼ is emerging, according to which the European continent comprises tolerant, democratic and peace-loving citizens. As well as being humane in their attitude towards others, these ʻnew Europeansʼ are more than simply interested in politics; they also know the function of and can influence the highly complex system of decision-making that is the EU.2

The image of a new European political culture is, however, emerging alongside the promotion of collective values that are very hard to distinguish from those of a culture particular to Europe. It is, for example, considered a historically determined fact that democracy and human rights are values of which the merit would be immediately understandable to any European citizen. The European Commission publication A New Idea for Europe claims that

The European Union derives its strength from common values of democracy and human rights, which rally its people, and has preserved the diversity of cultures and languages and the traditions which make it what it is.3

The same publication also appears to suggest, further, that peace-loving European citizen represents a realization of the very nature of the European peoples. On the enlargement of the European Union one reads:

Could one have foreseen this immense desire for democracy and peace which ultimately brought down the Berlin Wall and put the responsibility for their destinies back into the hands of the people of central and eastern Europe …?4

Moreover, EU bureaucrats and most influential European politicians rely on a fairly traditional liberal understanding of culture and the nature of cultural identities. The few Union documents on culture exhibit an Enlightenment understanding of culture in which culture promotes dialogue and cooperation between social actors, and advances social integration, democracy, peace and freedom of speech.5 An important reason for sustaining the traditional liberal image of culture as educational and immune to politics is the belief that in so doing it is also possible to avoid the fundamentalism determining the various nationalist criticisms of the European project. Indeed, nationalist tendencies are never mentioned when the EU deals with the issue of culture. Instead, any talk of cultural values in the EU rests on a positively formulated Enlightenment understanding of culture, tensely avoiding any discussion of the political fundamentalism which can develop in the relation between politics and culture. However, the general national scepticism towards the European project cannot simply be reduced to unimportant reactions from the borderline of the European populations. If the European project is to appeal to European populations, there is an urgent need for political engagement with both the structural and the practical problems related to questions of cultural identity.

Habermas: from peoples to publics

The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas is both the best and the most influential representative of the liberal democratic strand determining the understanding of culture in discussions of a future European politics.6 Habermas is also among those who think in optimistic terms about the possibilities offered by the European project. In the introduction to The Post-national Constellation he writes:

I see the only normatively satisfactory [political alternative to global competition] as a socially and economically effective European Union, constituted along federalist lines – an alternative that points to a future cosmopolitan order sensitive both to difference and to social equality. Only a Europe in which the domestication of violence engages each and every form of society and culture would be immune from the postcolonial relapse into Euro-centrism. And an intellectual discourse on human rights provides the terms in which a truly decentred perspective must prove itself.7

Habermas is an advocate of a European Union which is legally based on the federal constitution and the protection of human rights. He also recognizes the need for the further development of social integration if a European public sphere is to emerge. According to Habermas, social integration is necessary if European politics is to develop in and through a democratically justified legal framework.

But what are the implications of the federal constitution for the diversity of cultural identities? In …