Is the Refugees Crisis the Europe’s Tower of Babel? Narratives of Europeanization in Pan-European vs. National Online Media

Nowadays, the controversial “Refugees Crisis” seems to further fuel citizens’ anti-European feelings, illustrating nothing but what research has already proven – that negative attitudes towards others (due to racial, national and religious differences) are strong predictors of Euroscepticism (Christin and Trechsel, 2002; Elgun and Tillman, 2007; McLaren, 2007; De Vries and van Keerbergen, 2007; van Spanje and de Vreese, 2011). In this context, what are the key narratives of Europeanization in the online media identifiable when discussing about the Refugees Crisis? Are there significant differences between the national online media and the so-called “Pan-European” media? Our paper aims to analyse the key narratives of Europeanization in editorials and opinion articles approaching the Refugees Crisis published by Euronews.net, The Guardian.com, and Hotnews.ro (the most important news aggregator in Romania) in September 2015. Our research builds on H.-J. Trenz’s narratives of Europeanization – as variants of affirmation or disruption, and the extraordinary and the ordinary, respectively (2014, p. 7). We argue that there is a significant gap between the Pan-European press – which narrates an idealistically “triumphant” European Union, on the one hand, and the national press – which is very close to a “crisis oriented” European Union, on the other one. This might lead to the creation of a true “Tower of Babel” of European integration, which is not one of languages, but one of narrations and exposed values.