Az európai polisz
The European Polis

Summary/Abstract: Europe today is a polis, a political community with its own idiosyncrasies, habits, thought patterns, identity or identities and, as with all identity collectives, a mythic narrative of the past and a vision of its future. At the same time, the Europan Union with all its institutions, the member states, the elites, the civil society ecosystem that surrounds the EU, represents the totality of interaction between these various bodies. This European polis is incomplete, in as much as its constituent members have powers and legal rights in which the polis has no capacities. Europe is structured by asymmetries of power, frequently allowing the stronger to coerce the weaker. Formally all member states enjoy parity of esteem; in reality, this is not so and the large states regularly seek to impose their ideas on the smaller ones. In sum, the European polis is marked by the same contradictions that are inherent in Europe’s diversity. The task for Europe, from the current perspective, is to establish the necessary equilibrium and not to lose sight of it.

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