The European project at the beginning of twenty-first century underwent several changes in the line of legitimating arguments and discourses into a super State. Our analysis shows different types of perceived threats, according to their intensity and shared perception. The analysed of disaggregated data shows also that those threat perceptions vary by region (Western Europe, Southern Europe and “Post-communists” countries), and our findings also show that EU is beginning to be perceives as a threat to endogenous self-interested and priorities of the Members states. The divergence between Member States in their interests, contexts, strategies and finally, the EU’s own role in the world, in the core to defining Common Foreign and Security Policy.
In order to show possible differences among these states and elites, we tested the main variables proposed by the literature of EU studies, i.e. cognitive model, identity, ideology, truth in institutions. We try to identify what factors or variables of elites and mass public opinion of member states explain the lost cohesive Europe.
