The need for a new European identity?

European identity has often been regarded as a potential source of common identification for the peoples of Europe. As such, it has been compared with other supranational identities and deemed to fail. This article proposes a different perception of European identity, as a cultural convergence and individual identification rather than the nineteenth-century conception of national identity. It scrutinises two failed attempts to create supranational identities and explores the potential for a European approximation. The article concludes that student exchange programmes and labour mobility contribute to a broader understanding of the shared elements of European cultures and that multilin-gualism could be an effective surrogate for a common language.