A European Identity on the Periphery: A Comparative Study of the Representations of Europe in the Awkward Squad’s Press

Abstract

The aim of the article is to investigate the construction of Europe as illustrated by the coverage of the Lisbon Summit (18-19 October 2007) and signing of the Lisbon Treaty (13 December 2007) in quality newspapers in Britain and Poland, the two countries on the EU’s periphery, whose leaders (the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Polish President Lech Kaczyński) seem to be notorious for displaying their semi-detached attitude towards Europe. The corpus for the analysis comes from quality newspapers of both right-wing, conservative (Rzeczpospolita, The Daily Telegraph) and left-wing, liberal orientation (Gazeta Wyborcza, The Guardian).  Drawing on the strengths of the discourse-historical tradition of CDA in particular (Reisigl and Wodak 2001), the article will focus on answering the following questions: 1) How is the Lisbon Summit represented in both Polish and British newspapers and how is it situated in the broader political and historical context of European integration? 2) Which actors are selected in the coverage, which roles are ascribed to them, and how are they evaluated? 3) What metaphors and topoi are applied for legitimising or delegitimising the European Union as a political space?