The EU has been in an economic crisis as well as a ‘crisis of solidarity’ for several years now and this has no doubt influenced the way that the EU is represented. In my paper I want to analyze the development of discourse on the EU in the Netherlands through the analysis of newspaper articles, making a diachronic comparison between the discourse in 2005 and 2009, before and after/during the crisis. Aspects of comparison that will be focused on are related mainly to identity, looking firstly at the representation of EU power vs. state sovereignty. Secondly, the representation of either Europe/Brussels or of non-Europeans as ‘the other’ as opposed to the Dutch/European ‘us’ will be examined. Furthermore, through the choice of newspapers that will be analyzed an attempt will be made to distinguish between ‘popular’ and ‘elite’ discourse and how is reflected in the way the EU is represented.
