The Youth Shall Inherit the Earth? Supranational Identity-Building in Socialist Yugoslavia and the EU Compared
The Youth Shall Inherit the Earth? Supranational Identity-Building in Socialist Yugoslavia and the EU Compared

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on the intention of Youth Labor Actions in former Yugoslavia and the European Solidarity Corps in the EU to contribute to the creation of a Yugoslav and European supranational identity respectively. It does so by analyzing the programs’ evolution, ideological underpinnings, but also implementation modalities. The article argues that both programs, despite being developed in different historical periods, nurtured a similar spirit of solidarity and the idea of work for the common good. Both have had a comparable tendency to create and maintain supranational identities in subtle, but at the same time formalized ways. While following the same principal idea, they differ in the context in which they emerged, their treatment of national identities and the type of ideological baggage they carried. Creation of Yugoslavs ultimately failed, while creation of Europeans is still pending, aggravated by EU’s poly-crisis, politicization of European integration and clashing conceptions of identity within the EU.

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