4th Learning Circle

4th Learning Circle of Eunity – Outcomes

Topic: European or National Identity?

The European Union is composed of 27 independent sovereign countries which are known as member states: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. There are three official candidate countries, Croatia, FYROM and Turkey; the western Balkan countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia are officially recognised as potential candidates.

Nowadays, some Greek people don’t like the identity of the ‘native Greek’ so they support the European closure. People from England and Greece are believed to be the least European thinking. Media and better education are needed in order to persuade Greeks to become more Europeans. Also the separation of the political role of religion from the spiritual.

Today, it is obvious that it is difficult for the majority of the citizens to understand how the countries function and the lowly educated people can’t understand the complicated law system of the European Union.

This means we have to confirm that free and high quality education will be provided to everyone, as also extended information from the media.

The European identity is mostly a product of our political way of thinking, for example, Greeks accept the European identity, but they are afraid of losing any connection with their tradition and culture. This causes fear of foreign cultures and nations. Some classic Greek spots are pessimism, wrong management of their sources and misery, which prevents the understanding of our European morals. Further, Greece can’t manage correctly the sources provided by the Union, but can claim more than the recently joined members.

The characteristics of a new European are versatility, interest for travelling and money as a mean of having more activities.

The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki has the 3^rd position in the list of Erasmus, which means it promotes the raise of our European thinking…