“My European feelings are not only based on the fact that I live in Europe”: On the new mechanisms in European and national identification patterns emerging under the influence of EU Enlargement

Identity has recently become one of the most frequently theorised and explored topics within various sub-branches of social sciences. Collective identities in general, and their ancestry and construction in particular, are being perceived in different ways by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists and, last but not least, discourse-analysts. This article aims at shedding a new light on the concept of European identity, which, so far, has been most frequently analysed within the context of the European Union and its political and economic impact on the European space. Despite drawing theoretically on some well-grounded traditions of research on European identity, such as, e.g., analysis of its contradiction and suplementariness with national identities, or, its interconnection with such concepts as European citizenship or European integration, the analysis of European identity presented here is put in the context of globally understood identification processes. Empirically, the article draws on the analysis of TV talk show thematically bound by the topics concerning European Union’s impact on national identities.