EU Citizenship Building: The Role of Education and its Governance

1 Introduction Point of departure – the European context in a globalising world The European context is hit by the globalisation process (extremely complex, multidimensional and hard to manage). This phenomenon is characterised by an infinite number of trends and ongoing interlinked processes that involve the political life, the cultural dimension and the economic field. Just to mention some of this characteristic elements might be recalled the highly economic interdependence, the compression- extension of time and space, the ICT revolution, the cross-cutting movements and the emerging of a multicultural society. The impact of the globalisation process in all its dimensions makes clearly visible an increasing confusion and tension between interests, views, values, practices and perceptions in all the fields of living and in all the areas of the world 1 . This framework certainly asks for the responsibility of the EU to produce concrete answers to these emerging issues and trends. In this perspective, the European Citizenship could be seen as an answer offered by the EU to the need of building up a broader space of democracy and inclusiveness in a globalising world. In this context, the Treaty of Maastricht institutionalised a legally-based Citizenship of the Union, giving rights and opportunities to the European citizens, all in view of realising “a closer union among the peoples of Europe 2 ”. It was an important momentum in the European citizenship building process. However the Eurobarometer 3 findings show a clear decreased sense of belonging to the European Union and mixed outcomes between EU’s attempts to realise a more citizens’ oriented Union on the one hand and a certain reject of EU actions on the other hand. How to bridge this gap? Many questions emerge. How to connect the efforts coming from the Union to the real life of its citizens? How to link theory with practise, the legal and institutional framework with the daily reality? How to define an EU answer to the globalising challenges? And finally, what is the role of education in this Europeanisation vs globalisation debate? Those are the major challenges this thesis will address, in particular the prominent tool of education and education governance in the EU context. Topic and argument of thesis The major purpose of the thesis is to point out the relevance that education plays in building the European Citizenship concretely. 1 A very good presentation of this complex context is given by the ILO, A Fair Globalisation: Creating Opportunities for All, World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation, February 2004, part I (p. 3-11), part II (p. 12-51) 2 Article 2, Treaty of Maastricht, 1992 3 European Commission (Directorate-General for Communication), Flash Eurobarometer 294 – European Union Citizenship – analytical report, October 2010