The identity crisis facing Europe

By Chris Morris BBC World Affairs correspondent

On Thursday, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is hosting a special one-day European Union summit on European reform. Chris Morris reflects on whether reform is possible, if the EU is no longer sure what it stands for.

As the EU expands eastwards, are its roots too far in the West?

It was one of those beautiful spring days when the beech forests are a brilliant green, and the light seems to cascade through the leaves, tumbling down from the sky.

We were searching for the centre point, beginning to wonder whether we had just invented the idea that there was anything unusual out here in this vast expanse of trees.

The road began to undulate and the forest grew thicker still. But then we saw the sign, pointing along a narrow path, and we knew we had arrived.

This was the symbolic heart of old Europe. A cosy Western club where everyone felt they knew who they were and why

In a small clearing, in the middle of nowhere, stood a glass tower, refracting the light like the beech trees which stood sentinel all around.

We shielded our eyes from the glare and stared at this strange sculpture. It marked, or so it claimed, the very geographical centre of the European Union.

Or at least it used to.

And that was why we had sought it out.

'Old ideas'

We were close to the border of France, Belgium and Luxembourg. Germany and the Netherlands were both a short drive away.

This was the symbolic heart of old Europe. A cosy Western club where everyone felt they knew who they were.

Change often seems to be regarded more as threat than as opportunity

But Europe was changing - indeed it had already changed. The union was expanding, the boundaries were shifting, and the centre of Europe was being reinvented in front of us.

Where is the centre now? Hard to say, but the glass tower in the clearing, with all its transparent optimism, has long since become a folly, as old ideas of Europe have been challenged by new realities.

Rebirth

There is a resolutely glum mood in Europe at the moment. Economies have stagnated, the EU has hit the institutional buffers, and change often seems to be regarded more as threat than as opportunity.

Lest we forget though we have been living through a time of extraordinary success.

To travel to the great cities of central Europe in the last few years, to Prague, to Warsaw and to Budapest, has been to witness the rebirth of confident European roots which had been suppressed for nearly half a century under Communism.

Europe has grown wider at the same time that it has struggled to go deeper.

But where will it all end?

What, today, does it mean to be a European?

Defining characteristics

Americans adopt a different approach to identity

Thoughts of that glass tower in the woods have come back to me in the last few weeks as we have seen fierce debates about Turkey starting talks on EU membership, and about the flood of migrants from Africa and Asia trying to get into Europe, and about the migrant communities who are already here.

It is all about who is a European and who is not.

It is rather different on the other side of the Atlantic.

Anyone can be an American. It does not matter where you are from.

There are Japanese Americans, Lithuanian Americans, Arab Americans and so on.

We live in a continent still trying to define its identity

When we lived in Washington we used to buy our precious stocks of Marmite, rather unexpectedly, from the El Salvadorian shop on 17th Street.

"I'm not an El Salvadorian any more," the owner used to say, "I'm an El Salvadorian American."

Quite a mouthful, but there was no denying what it meant to him. Not a minority, but part of the mainstream.

In Europe we have British Asians, German Turks.

But note the difference.

In the US the emphasis is the other way around, they are not American Poles but Polish Americans.

Americans first and foremost, implying a sense of belonging and of acceptance which Europe sometimes struggles to emulate. I think it is because we live in a continent still trying to define its identity.

Can values have borders, can we build barriers around them?

There are those who argue that modern Europe has inherited the mantle of Christendom, that that should be one of its defining characteristics.

Others disagree profoundly. The debate will grow louder and much of it will focus on Turkey, and its rapidly growing population of 70 million Muslims.

The EU will have to decide where its borders lie, and what the idea of Europe means to our generation.

Some people like to talk about the values which bind us together. A Europe in our minds more important than a Europe on the map.

But is that enough?

Can values have borders, can we build barriers around them?

Border control

I suppose people have tried to do just that throughout European history.

Hadrian built his Wall, and many centuries later Stalin his Iron Curtain. The one to keep people out, the other to keep them in.

But it has never really been that simple, and in this modern networked Europe barriers can be bypassed by the click of a mouse.

Take any of the issues which confront us today.

The good (ideas and investment) or the bad (bombs and bird flu) - none of them takes much account of borders.

So perhaps it is hardly surprising that we are no longer very sure where the centre is.

And that there is no glass tower to be glimpsed through the trees, as we try to navigate through our world of confusing possibility.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 21 October, 2005 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.