Ethnic identity, European identity and European participation of youth in the eastern EU border region

European identity is neither a new phenomenon nor a new concept. Yet, after almost three decades of research, this area is characterized by a big variety of concepts and little empirical evidence. Existing studies in the area propose homogeneous concepts of societies and often disregard European identity among ethnic minorities and non-citizens. This presentation addresses the gap in the literature and analyses European identity among 12 minority groups living in Central and Eastern European countries, which already have become or might become EU members. The purpose of this study is twofold: to examine the choice of European identity and attitudes towards Europe in relation to other identities among respondents with an ethnic minority background and to uncover the relationship of these identities with political participation at the European Union level. The presentation addresses these two questions within the life-course perspective and examines differences in identity and participation levels between the younger and older cohorts of minority groups. Our results indicate a stronger level of European orientation among minority youth in comparison to adults. Moreover, the study shows that while minority youth manifests stronger level of European identity than adults, their levels of national and ethnic identity are significantly lower. While adults consider their national identity to be more salient than European identity, minority youth gives the two equal degree of importance. At the same time, for both youth and adults, the results illustrate a high salience of ethnic identity in constructing and managing their pro-European orientation as well as in increasing the likelihood of participation in the European Parliamentary elections. For our analysis we have used the unified ENRI-VIS data set as collected within the project ENRI-East (n=6800).