Viejas y nuevas formas de pensar Europa

Abstract

Plurality is scant when we refer to the emergence of an entity whose material existence we identify as the European Union, an assemblage of European governments united by common interests and non-vanishing states. On the other hand, there are many cultures in that Europe of nations and states – a byproduct of its history – and there are also many old and new ways of thinking about the past, the present and the future of Europe. This text shades light, sometimes in a critical way, on some of these old and new ways of thinking Europe, and ends up putting one of them in question. Far away from the idea of a «European social model,» it is necessary to take into account both the different political cultures of social reform in Europe and the tensions between them.