When I walked onto the tarmac of Bratislava International Airport recently, to board Czech Airlines’ direct service to Prague, I realized I was about to break one of the two cardinal rules of business travel, which are: Thou shalt not check luggage and, more importantly, Thou shalt not fly in anything smaller than what is found on American highways. As we wobbled along to our destination, I took refuge in the well-trodden path of travelers facing similar situations—I struck up a conversation with my neighbor.

Although clearly young, from his appearance he seemed a serious business type and not one to engage in idle chit-chat. His “aye, thanks” to the steward revealed him to be an Irishman, and I jumped at the opening. After the obligatory five minute discussion about Dublin’s O’Connell Street, he told me he moved to Prague to deal in Eastern European real estate. My fear of a fiery crash quickly dissolved into bafflement as he said, “It’s not at all peculiar; Prague for us Europeans is like moving West for you Americans.”

I am not sure if my friend was aware of Otto von Bismarck’s famous statement, “Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong: it is a geographical expression,” but then again I am not sure if the Iron Chancellor had ever been to Prague. The city’s Disneyland-esque tourist center hides a bigger wonder: a bustling, cosmopolitan (and European) business community. Throughout my trip I met people with a similar perspective to that of my new Irish friend—young, professional Europeans who, while clearly proud of their own respective countries, also “felt” European.

Most memorable was an end-of-semester party for students of a Polish language course. As the graduates from practically every EU member state talked in Polish about Europe, a British student chimed in, “When there is an American here, I feel European.”  To my mind, if even the reliably ethnocentric British are beginning to consider themselves European, then we are quickly moving beyond the point where this identity is confined to the platitudes of EU officials.

The EU suffers from the media’s structural inability to cover processes, as opposed to one-off events.

Americans have long been dismissive of a concerted European identity, probably best captured by Kissinger’s biting comment, “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” Of course the recent “No” votes on a European constitution only reinforced the view that the EU is little more than a collection of (weakly) united economies. The prospect that the bickering states of the Old World would ever be able to forge a “United States of Europe,” despite George Washington himself believing that it would one day be so, was seen as unfeasible if not downright fanciful.

The media’s structural inability to cover processes, as opposed to one-off events, only adds to this impression, with recent coverage blandly devoted to French concerns about “Polish plumbers” or the struggles of the UK to absorb hundreds of thousands of Eastern European immigrants. The incessant focus on political and economic factors overlooks the slower moving—but much more powerful—forces of culture and identity.  

Identity is more than legislation, but institutional changes since 1992 are quickly, although quietly, facilitating the emergence of Generation E, young people who are comfortable working across the EU, identify themselves as European, and believe that there are European values—often in contrast to perceived American ones. As an inherently social construct, identity can just as easily be fashioned from opposing something as from rallying around something (just ask a Canadian).

That doesn’t mean that being European will replace other national identities. Amartya Sen has persuasively argued that identity is not a unitary phenomenon and that people juggle multiple identities simultaneously. It is not too difficult to imagine how a new generation is simply adding “European” into their mix. Old and New Europe are fictions. True, young Eastern Europeans still remember Soviet domination and remain generally less secular and more pro-American than their Western brethren. But it would be more accurate to speak of European states at different points in a journey—and in this case, all roads lead to Brussels.

The emergence of this new identity signals a seismic change in how Europeans will view and relate to the rest of the world. However, this shift is like viewing tectonic plates—incremental movements that are not readily visible, especially in the snap-shot picture provided by the media. I am sure that over two hundred years ago the framers of the U.S. constitution, who viewed this as the first step in molding an American identity, were equally derided by some in Europe. But the dint of events crafted just such an identity, one that today seems self-evident.

Likewise, the ramifications of Generation E will not be fully felt for another few decades until its members begin to assume positions of leadership in their respective countries. At the same time, it can be expected that this process will gradually pick up speed as it is essentially a self-reinforcing cycle; people who see themselves as belonging to a larger construct of Europe are more willing to institute changes to bring Europeans closer together, which in turn will lead more people to feel European.

My Irish neighbor, mistaking my bemused expression for a more cowardly instinct, said, “Not to worry mate, it’s always a bit bumpy when we start out, but soon you’ll forget we’re even in the air.” Prague is one of the best places to marvel at this identity-in-takeoff; my only advice is: Don’t take the Friday afternoon Bratislava-Prague flight to see it.