Two and a Half Tales of Europe: How the European Commission Narrates Peoplehood in Migration and Citizenship Policy

Abstract

Since 2019, the European Commission has had a vice president for ‘promoting our European way of life’, but whether a European ‘we’ exists at all is disputed. This article investigates whether and how the Commission has constructed this ‘we’ through narratives of peoplehood. Analysing official communications in migration and citizenship policy between 2007 and 2020, it traces three narrative elements: characters, plot and main theme. The article argues, first, that the Commission's narrative of ‘realizing European citizenship’ creates a sense of peoplehood more than its narrative of ‘achieving a comprehensive migration policy’ and, second, that it has largely repeated its citizenship narrative while adapting its migration narrative. The findings suggest that the Commission is a rather subtle narrator of peoplehood and call into question whether it has a clear idea of the ‘we’ whose ‘way of life’ it seeks to promote.