What is the European Union (EU) and which countries should be part of it in the future? These questions became topical during the first part of the 21st century when political and geographical changes hasten the need to decide the nature of the European cooperation. In the European Constitution, that never come into force, the European values that a key role but was taken away in the succeeding Lisbon Treaty. Nevertheless EU continues to expand, recently to the East and non-European countries asTurkey are now on the “waiting-list”. What is then the European Identity in the changedEurope of today?   The President of the Commission has during the years had great influence on EU's view upon the European identity. For example, Jacques Delors was prominent in urging for European togetherness over national borders. Still, the current president, José Manuel Barroso, has new political and geographical situations to consider. That raises the question whether this new era might have an impact upon the president’s view of the European identity.   How to relate to the European identity is something that the sociologist Gerard Delanty investigates. Foremost is his focus upon the historical rise of “Europe” and in addition the European identity effect European immigrants. Delanty has also created four models for European identity of “thick” and “thin” categories. The models systematize different views upon the European identity.   This essay investigates how these models can be used as an instrument to categorize the different views upon the European identity that has been used by official sources within EU in the past, and compare these to the view which is expressed by Barroso today. The result is that Barroso’s view upon the European identity correlates to a great extent with the view of the 1950’s and 1960’s. That is, that the European identity should be based upon moral values as democracy and human rights. In contrast, the view in the 1980’s and beginning and 1990’s was a greater focus upon similarities in ancient history and multi-cultureEurope. In this way, Barroso’s view is similar to the early EU, however, not to the more recent opinions about European culture.

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