“This is an attack on the whole of Europe, our values and our way of life" : Use of European Identity in the Finnish Parliament Discussions About the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Sammanfattning: The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the security environment of Europe overnight. This study addresses how this affected the rhetoric regarding European identity and the threats to it, in the Finnish parliament insecurity related discussions. It does this by employing the three part framework of social identity used by Brewer and Herman in their bookabout European identity. The framework contains three aspects: the composition, the content and the in-group out-group perceptions of identity. It attempts to unearth these aspects of European identity, byemploying concepts such as nested identity and the division between ethnicand cultural identity. The study presents the results of qualitative contentanalysis with quantitative elements of Finnish parliamentary sessions fromthe Spring of 2022. The study concludes that European Identity is used inthe Finnish parliament to both increase Finnish sense of security whilebuilding solidarity with Ukraine. The nature of European identity isprimarily civil and the threats towards it are also conceived as civil threats,however with the caveats that all national/political identities are a mix ofethnic and civil elements. The study also concludes that both EU andEuropean identity matter, but that European identity is more universal.