How to Build Europe with Words

The EU construction process involves, along with legislative and administrative aspects, the building of a European identity, which represents the ultimate source of legitimation of a politically definite Union.
Hence, the need for developing an awareness of European identity has been systematically supported by the European Union in its official and statutory texts, which are not only to be considered a mere transmission of information or norms, but can also be seen as ideological instruments of institutional power aimed at the construction of a political identity.
As a matter of fact, constitutions and treaties themselves are not neutral but rather hold a position in the ideological and political structure of a given society. And, as the EU treaties are the primary documents which lay the foundations of the European Union, its peoples, institutions and policies, it is important to understand how beliefs about and attitudes towards the EU, in one word ideology, are constructed in them by means of discursive strategies.
This book, by means of a multidisciplinary approach, investigates the creation of a European identity through the discourse analysis of the treaties constituting the Treaty of Lisbon, in order to corroborate the hypothesis that the European Union identity is a political and ideological construct whose development can be traced in its founding documents.