It’s time for a real European passport

The other day, while going through the immigration procedure at an international airport, a thought stroke me: How nice wouldn’t it be to pull out an official European passport (“Citizen of Europe”) with a unified design instead of a national country’s one that only has the additional “European Union” visuals?

You might be wondering: “What’s the point? It’s just a symbol!” True. But the whole idea of nation states, borders and nationalism is mostly about symbols (and attached cultures and norms). Those who are very proud of their country are mostly proud of the symbols their country stands for. Symbols simply matter.

There are people who oppose the idea of a closely integrated European Union. That’s their right. But there are also people who actually love the idea of being European, who happily identify as European - potentially even more than as citizens of their country of origin. I am one of them. And for me, traveling with a passport formally issued by the European Union (instead of one country) would be a logical consequence with high symbolic value.

This is my idea: Brussels could introduce an official European Union passport for those who’d like one. Everyone should be able to choose whether they prefer the regular passport issued by their country or one issued by the Union (or both, if they love passports and don’t mind double application fees). Ideally, the fee to obtain the passport should cover its production and administrative costs, at least after an initial grace period of a few years, so that no one can complain about a waste of money. In the mid term, this passport should be accepted by all countries that today grant access to EU citizens (obviously based on the lowest common denominator — entry rules of various countries differ for holders of different EU passports). Initially, to keep the costs down and to get started quickly, the data and document information inside the passport could still be based on the individual national citizenship, so that for immigration officers, holders of this passport would still identify as “French”, “Spanish”, “Polish” or “German” (of course, then theoretically one could just purchase such a passport cover, but it is really not the same).

I’m sure one could come up with many obstacles to this proposal and reasons why it should not be done. But provided that one would manage to keep the costs low and to make such a passport optional, there isn’t a lot to lose or to complain about. Nobody would be forced to carry this passport. But those who identify with Europe when abroad would get the opportunity to formally do so.

The whole thing could be set up as a pilot, with a trial duration of, say, 5 years. If a set target number of these passports has been issued at the end of this period (say, 2 million à 50 Euro administrative fee each, which would provide a budget of 100 million Euro over a period of 5 years), the European passport will stay. If demand turns out to be too low, it’ll go away again.

Would you apply for this passport?

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