Acta Universitatis Danubius. Juridica, Vol 7, No 1 (2011)

Abstract

The departure point of many discussions on European identity is the idea that a political community needs a common set of values and references to ensure its coherence, to guide its actions and to endow these with legitimacy and meaning. The motto “unity in diversity” is generally seen as best describing the aims of the European Union; opinions differ widely as to how it should be understood. That is why we will try to identify those values which brought the European countries together almost 60 years ago. And we will continue to see, based on the Eurobarometers results, which are the European citizens’ values and what European Union represents for them, in terms of values. For that we will put together the items obtained in the last five years and we will see in the end to which value European Union should pay more attention in the future. Even the surveys show that European Union citizens continue to identify first of all with their own countries and we consider it important to find an answer to the following question: Is European Union a community of shared values?