Everyday Europeanization has been researched in diverse fields like sports, culture, education and identities (Brand et.al. 2024) and identified as a mundane phenomenon in the general public, most of the time happening in an unconscious way and less often being a clear statement of identity and political belonging. Yet, everyday Europeanization is described as an inevitable fact, pervading all spheres of social life and leading to a community of faith (Trenz 2015). Even more, a recent study by Lahusen (2021) demonstrates how European citizens take a “European frame of reference” into account, when comparing their own quality of life with other European citizens.

On basis of these previous findings, this presentation argues that even political identities have become more Europeanized. By the example of a population survey in 12 European regions in Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, France, Poland and Spain, awareness about the interconnectedness of political communities among European citizens is examined. The findings reveal different types of belonging, namely a narrow focus, a multiple focus of belonging and a group of unaffiliated respondents. Although these types form separate groups of political belonging, all respondents consider different constituencies simultaneously when thinking about how political representation is organized in Europe. The findings illustrate that awareness for a simultaneous belonging to various constituencies, including the European level, has reached ordinary citizens' life worlds and everyday life. This awareness should not be equalized to feelings like enthusiasm and Europhilia but can also induce resistance and Euroscepticism.

In response to the “Brussels bubble” metaphor, which highlights the EU’s perceived disconnection from its constituents, the EU has adopted the “citizen turn” to enhance citizen involvement in policymaking. While extensive research exists on what political institutions motivate to increase citizen participation, this paper focuses on the hesitancy to grant citizens more power at the EU level. In particular, this paper examines the reluctance within the European Parliament (EP) to establish a systematic connection between citizens and representatives. It focuses on the sedimented notions within the EP, extending beyond Eurosceptic arguments. The EP, as the only democratically elected EU institution and the main channel between citizens and EU policymaking, is a particularly suitable case for studying this hesitancy. Based on interviews with EP staff, the study reveals three interrelated factors contributing to the reluctance to enhance EU citizen participation: an elitist view, an embedded notion of representative democracy fed by trickle-down democracy, and the boomerang effect of the instrumental use of citizen participation. In particular, within an elitist view, citizens are seen as incompetent, and participation is viewed as a threat to representative democracy. The trickle-down approach to democracy contributes to such reluctance by believing that increased democracy “at the top” will naturally reach citizens “at the bottom”. Furthermore, the instrumentalisation of citizens’ participation—using participatory tools such as CoFoE to enhance the EP’s role and launch a treaty change—backfires, creating a boomerang effect that unintentionally delegitimises EU citizen participation among those supposed to support it.

Europe likes to present itself as a community of rights, participation and solidarity, in which young people are central protagonists. Yet we know surprisingly little about how young Europeans actually enact “Europe” in their everyday diplomatic practices – how they speak, what they claim to know, and how they translate European norms between Brussels, national capitals and global fora.

This paper brings together three strands of my research on European youth participation in multilevel governance. First, I draw on a comparative framework of youth co-governance that identifies when youth bodies move beyond symbolic consultation towards shared agenda-setting and scrutiny within EU and Europeanised institutional settings. Second, I use a case study of the Czech UN Youth Delegate scheme, situated in the context of EU youth policy and mobility programmes, to examine economic socialisation: which aspects of European and global economic governance are made visible to young delegates, and which remain implicit or invisible. Third, I build on a frame analysis of public communication by Czech and Norwegian youth delegates (2015–2025) to identify four ideal-typical ways in which young Europeans perform expertise and represent “European youth”: expert, experiential, representative and moral.

Empirically, the paper analyses speeches, official statements, consultation outputs and social-media content in which young Europeans speak about education, social justice, climate and economic issues in EU-linked and UN arenas. The findings show that youth delegates consistently anchor their authority in European rights language – equality, participation, intergenerational justice – while also drawing on biographical experience and national specificities from across Europe. However, institutional design matters: stronger embedding in ministries and EU-related structures tends to narrow everyday practices towards disciplined, expert–representative alignment with existing policy scripts, whereas more fragile or hybrid arrangements leave greater room for experiential and moral framings that connect high-level debates back to everyday European concerns at home.

The paper argues that these micro-practices of youth diplomacy illuminate how “Europe” is constructed from below as both a symbolic and practical project: a repertoire of rights, responsibilities and futures that young people selectively appropriate, translate and sometimes quietly contest. It concludes by discussing how EU and member-state youth participation schemes might move from showcasing youth as emblematic Europeans towards more substantive intergenerational co-governance in European public life.

Participatory instruments have increasingly been promoted within the European Union (EU) as a response to the EU’s democratic deficit and the perceived distance between citizens and EU institutions. However, it remains under-researched, especially in post-communist countries, how these instruments are understood by citizens, and whether they are seen as a legitimate way to strengthen citizens’ connection to EU decision-making.

EU Challenges and Priorities: Young Europeans’ Views survey (2025) shows that 52% of Czech youth aged 19 to 24 see voting as the best way to make their voice heard by EU decision-makers, while only 19% say the same about deliberative tools (European Commission, 2025). This suggests stronger trust in electoral channels and echoes findings by Scott, Lomičová, and Šerek (2023), who show that Czech citizens do not necessarily view direct democracy as more legitimate than representative. Transparent public deliberation was seen as the essential foundation of legitimate governance, regardless of institutional form. Building on this, we ask what the intersubjectively shared meanings of Czech youth are on participatory and representative democracy in the EU.

The study draws on three focus group discussions with Czech youth (N = 62) aged 18 to 24. Rather than political apathy, the findings point to selective scepticism toward EU participation. In line with García Espín and Ganuza (2017), this scepticism is not directed at participation itself but reflects doubts about the system’s effectiveness and the civic competence of other citizens.

Representative democracy is widely taken for granted as the most legitimate form of governance. Participatory instruments, especially consultations, are viewed positively but mainly as informational tools that transmit citizens’ concerns to political representatives. Participants are sceptical about expanding citizens’ decision-making power through participatory mechanisms, often seen as risky given perceived low public knowledge, education, and engagement. EU participatory governance is valued chiefly for supporting representative institutions through better information flows and responsiveness, rather than for empowering citizens or enabling co-decision.

European Commission, Brussels (2025). Flash Eurobarometer 556 (EU Challenges and Priorities: Young Europeans’ Views) (ZA8928; Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. GESIS, Cologne. https://doi.org/10.4232/1.14507

García-Espín, P., & Ganuza, E. (2017). Participatory Skepticism: Ambivalence and Conflict in Popular Discourses of Participatory Democracy. Qualitative Sociology, 40, 425–446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-017-9367-6

Scott, Z., Lomičová, L., & Šerek, J. (2023). How Citizens Evaluate the Legitimacy of Direct Vote and Representation-Based Decision-Making: Findings From the Focus Groups on Adoption of the Euro and Acceptance of Refugees. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.6895