Author: Eelco Couvreur
Translated from Dutch by Maud Vis.
This article has been published by DJ Broadcast
"We were promised tourists, not refugees"
said Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, summarizing the worries of some of his fellow-countrymen. According to Krastev, Eastern Europeans feel like they have been fooled. The European Union was supposed to bring prosperity, not crises. Krastev would make a perfect guest speaker for We are Europe. This utopian and elitist program, according to the program's website, is: "a catalyst of the European identity".
When I read that mission over a year ago, my first reaction was: what European identity are they talking about? Are they referring to the plural identities of the nation states? The neoliberalism and consumerism? Or is it the ever-growing xenophobia they're referring to? This is exactly the kind of cynicism that We are Europe is trying to fight. Instead of emphasizing failed European projects, the program tries to point out the success stories. They don't focus on the countries, or different cultures, but instead highlight European commonplaces by facilitating the exchang...
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