Dear Brian, thank you for your comment.

You have raised a couple of

interesting arguments that are worth debating on.
Firstly, I do agree with you that nationalism in the European countries should
never be underestimated or overestimated when writing about European
integration. This would be as you correctly say a historical mistake. But,
nationalism is a floating and mutable concept. For instance, during the 19th
industrializing century in Europe, nationalism was used as a political device to
achieve political integration (see Bismarks Reich or the Italian unification).
Then, in the 20th century, nationalism meant cultural superiority of one
country towards another, leading to two dangerous wars among many others.
For the 21st globalized century, what could it mean? In my view, our century
is the starting point of an interdependent world made of individual
transnational exchanges, so I arguably think that nationalism as you refer to
does not apply anymore. This does not mean that cultural differences do not
matter. On the contrary, they become even more important, since they apply
at the individual (private) level (such as religion for secularized not to refer
to the French concept of laict- countries) instead to the whole society.
Therefore, since the concept of nation dissociates itself from its political form
(i.e. the State), the European Union could be seen as the point of departure
of a post-national democracy where every citizens is aware of its differences
but also believe in a common constitutional arrangement of democracy,
norms of justice, and civic republicanism (Habermas, J., 2014, "Why the
Development of the European Union into a Transnational Democracy is
Necessary and How it is Possible", Democracy in Europe - ARENA Working
Paper).
Secondly, putting culture and progress side by side as you suggest in your
comment may lead to dangerous evolutionist theories of History (see
Spencers ideas at the beginning of the 20th century). If we refer to the idea of
progress in our article, we never attribute it to sociocultural evolutionism.
Progress means that you live better today than you did yesterday. Therefore,
progress for us means achieving better social policies that can improve
everyday life in an increasingly unequal world (and please note that this does

not just apply to the EU case, but also do developing countries such as
BRICS as you probably mentioned).
Finally, the juxtaposition between the Hanseatic League and the EU does not
entirely follow. The former was essentially conceived as a project for
commerce and market relations. Concerning the latter, my view is that the EU
is a project first and foremost of peace through integration. Fostering a
European civil society would not suppress cultural / national heritages, but
would make every EU citizen aware of its differences, but also belief in
democracy and social welfare.
You can arguably say that our ideas are utopistic and that our policies are an
oversimplified view of the world. But, as Milan Kundera used to say, in a
world built on sacrosanct certainties, progress is dead. Possibility and
desirability of a different society should be seen as a starting point for the
European project which is suffering today from a serious lack of political and
moral principles, and not just an irresponsible and ungrounded thinking.