Makes the innovative effort of examining the interplay between political identity and legitimacy in the unprecedented but also unfinished development of the European Union into a fully fledged political actor.

Stimulated by the crisis of legitimacy and identity suffered by the EU after the referenda on the Constitutional Treaty, this work develops a theoretical framework to examine the interplay between these two items in the problematic development of the EU into a fully-fledged political actor. It also features case studies.