“United in diversity” – this motto of the European Union captures a fundamental tension within the European integration process. This is also reflected in the Treaty on European Union (TEU): the aim of “achieving an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe”, pursued with the establishment of the European Union (Art. 1(2) TEU) is set against commitments to plurality, for example in Art. 4(2), first sentence, TEU, which obliges the European Union to “respect the national identities of the Member States, as expressed in their fundamental political and constitutional structures, including regional and local self-government.” Balancing this tension represents a central challenge for the European integration process, one that must be continually addressed, on both a small and a large scale. This project analyses the relationship between unity and diversity in two fundamental areas of European integration, namely European citizenship and the protection of European fundamental rights. For even these prima facie unitarian institutions – namely European fundamental rights and European citizenship – operate within the tension between unity and diversity described above, as they coexist alongside parallel national institutions, namely national fundamental rights and national citizenship.

The research project thus not only fits perfectly into the Jakob Fugger Centre’s general focus on transnational social and political developments. Rather, it also applies two fundamental perspectives on transnationality that link the Centre’s current research projects, namely the question of identity constructions as well as that of diversity and integration.