Is there a European identity?

Given the preoccupation with identity in recent times, it was inevitable that the question of Europe would be posed in terms of that concept. The resulting notion of a European identity has led to a confused debate, not because Europe cannot have an identity or because the bearers of such an identity, Europeans, do not exist, but because the very idea of identity in this debate has rarely been clarified. Do we mean a collective identity, a variety of interlinking collective identities, an aggregation of personal identities, a broadly defined cultural category, or an official EU cultural or political identity? Whether Europe is unable to compete with national societies because national identities are more real or powerful than collective ones depends on what kind of collective identity we mean when we refer to large-scale social groups or societal complexes having an identity