Proofs of Identity in European Society: Rights of the non-European Foreigner

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to reflect some thoughts on the process of construction of european identity from a critical consideration of the institutional discourse about non-EU foreigners. The phenomenology of contemporaries migrations affecting the european continent shows a gradual convergence of national histories. This process has raised an intense institutional debate on the communitarisation of migration policies. The underlying trends of the european institutional discourse allow to reflect critically on the possibility of identifying the non-EU migrants with a social form of the ‘european foreigner’ and highlighting the implications for the european identity.