Cultural Pluralism and European Polity-Building

In view of the shortcomings of both ‘Westphalian’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ approaches to European integration, it seems advisable to follow a different path in order to grasp the relationship of political and cultural identities in the European Union (EU). The regulation of cultural pluralism at the European level is characterized by the contradictions underlying the EU's institutional development. The principle of intergovernmentalism stresses the role of nation‐states and tends to reaffirm the weight of national cultures. At the same time, however, European transnationalism offers possibilities for articulating cultural identities below and beyond the nation‐state, contributing to some extent to the ‘denationalization’ of political cultures. This can be illustrated with examples taken from the area of European language policy. In the process of constructing a European polity that is responsive to the challenges posed by cultural diversity, the principle of subsidiarity still bears considerable normative potential.