So far, most analyses of how Europeans imagine, perceive, narrate, and discursively construct “Europe” cast the issue of an eventually emerging European identity in more strictly political terms. Consequently, knowledge of, and allegiance towards the EU/Europe, merging news agendas across different European media contexts, or overlapping values and shared political self-understandings are at the centre of gravity of these traditional studies. We aim at something different in that we put people’s everyday (and supposedly non-political) activities, their resulting patterns of identification and identity change centre stage. Our starting point are lifeworldly contexts and phenomena in the realms of sport, culture, literature, movies, fandom, leisure time activities, job and student mobilities, tourism, as well as transboundary cross-border regional experiences associated with forms of “normal” life. The panel aims at discussing different and new ways of how identities and narrative and forms of citizenship in the context of Europe are formed.

The European Universities Initiative (EUI) can be seen as an attempt to deepen and extend the Europeanizing influence of the Erasmus+ programme among universities in Europe, encouraging HEIs to go beyond existing forms of cooperation and target a wider higher education community. By developing the idea of a “European Campus” between HEIs, by multiplying the levels and types of cooperation between partner institutions and making this an everyday occurrence throughout the domestic higher education experience, the EUI can be seen as promoting a form of “Everyday Europeanhood” as inspired by Skey & Antonsich’s concept of “Everyday Nationhood” (Skey & Antonsich, 2017). In the context of growing nationalisms and Euroscepticism, this paper applies the original concept of “Everyday Europeanhood” to the European Universities Initiative (EUI), seen as a tool to promote a common sense of belonging conveyed through everyday practice, among students and staff in European University Alliances. Through the discussion of concrete everyday activities within the European University Alliance “FORTHEM”, it is argued that, unlike some previous top-down European initiatives designed to symbolically reinforce a sense of shared European identity, the EUI seems to be a more operative instrument in terms of bottom-up “everyday” processes of identity development. Core features, aspects, actions and outputs achieved so far within the FORTHEM Alliance are categorised and discussed in the light of four dimensions of “Everyday Europeanhood”: “Talking Europe”, “Choosing Europe”, “Performing Europe” and “Consuming Europe”.

The Euregio Maas-Rhine (EMR in Netherlands, Belgium and Germany) is one of the oldest Euregios in the EU and serves as a typical example for continuing cross-border relations. We aim at investigating horizontal Europeanization in the Belgian part of the EMR by researching frames of perception in this respect (Heidenreich 2019). We follow Worschech et.al. (2021) in focusing at three main aspects of horizontal Europeanization in our analysis in the EMR: institutions, interactions and interpretations. Using data from Eurobarometer on Cross-Border regions in 2020, we analyze drivers of Europeanization along those three dimensions for the Belgian sample. We find general trust in others being an important predictor of interpreting life in a cross-border region in terms of an opportunity. While types of interaction do not matter in this respect, legal and administrative barriers (institutional barriers) show some importance in perceiving cross-border regions as an advantage. The quality of contacts hence seems to be more important than the mere quantity of contacts for experiencing the transnational European space as an opportunity. Our results are in line with our analysis on the 2015 Eurobarometer dataset on Cross-Border regions and supported by our previous qualitative research among regional MPs of the German-speaking community in Belgium (Donat&Lenhart 2022). Our contribution provides evidence for the interrelated process of EU state and society building as well as pushing (policy making) and pulling factors for European Integration (societal demands and expectations) (Trenz 2021).

As a highly popular mass leisure phenomenon, football can serve as a carrier of social identities. In recent years, the governance and competition of elite men's club football in Europe have become increasingly Europeanized. Previous research has shown that these changes in the sport have an impact on fans' perceptions of and their sense of identification with Europe.

Against this backdrop, we conduct a survey in four countries - Germany, Norway, Spain, and Poland - targeting both fans and non-fans. The survey investigates opinions and attitudes on Europe and on football-specific aspects, such as pan-European competitions, the liberalization of transfer markets and fan organisation. The results of the study will provide insight into distinct identity effects of continued exposure to football as a Europeanised mass leisure activity. They can illustrate how changes in the sport are influencing perceptions of Europe and the sense of European identity among fans in comparison to non-fans, allowing for conclusions on the role of football on wider European identity dynamics.