Classes and individuals in the European Union: Marxist and cosmopolitan approaches

Abstract The article proposes a historical materialist reading of the European Union, placing the class struggle at the heart of the analysis of the EU project. A central idea is that historical development is the result of social conflict, a ubiquitous force which materialises unevenly at multiple levels, nationally and internationally. As far as the European Union is concerned, it is argued that class struggle occurs predominantly at the level of Member States rather than transnationally at the level of the Union. This reading has several repercussions. An important repercussion is that by anchoring the understanding of the EU to the struggle born out of the material clash between interests of national collective forces, this contribution distances itself from liberal idealistic readings of the Union that see the EU as an example of Kantian cosmopolitan right. Where the latter approach sees the European Union as a real-life example of universal hospitality, historical materialism sees a Union divided along class- and national lines. The article supports that the latter understanding is in a better place to describe the nature of the EU project.