I'd guess most people see it in terms of values. Something that's an alternative to the rather homogenous and obsessive commerce-led US culture. And also to other significant economic and trading blocs around the world. Probably something that's based on Englightenment beliefs about how the world works and how it should work.

In some ways it's a brave experiment. Other empires - Rome, France, many others - were based primarily on military strength. Sometimes they were shortlived because they were tied to the fate and skills of one ruler. Without that ruler they soon fell apart. But the EU doesn't have a ruler, it has a parliament and a bureaucracy and apparently a loose and often unstated collection of ideals. And it doesn't have an empire so much as a loose association of allies. It's an unusual way to try to build something lasting.

It's interesting that while the US frets about the Chinese, Europe is potentially a much bigger commercial threat to the US - not only in terms of PetroDollars becoming PetroEuros, but in terms of innovation and inventiveness. I don't know what a PanEuro society could look like. Empires always complain about immigrants and always treat them with lower status. So the Muslim issue shouldn't really be a surprising development.

But thinking about it, it's possibly the wrong question. There's a huge corporate land grab happening at the moment all over the planet, similar to the Enclosure Acts in England in the 18th and 19th century. The poor and middle class - anyone who doesn't have a corporate-sponsored job - are being deprived of a livelihood, and some of the ideals of the 60, like creative freedom and independence are being undermined. Europe doesn't seem to have a position on that. It's hard to tell which way the wind is blowing. The UK seems broadly supportive of corporate power and broadly hostile to groups that don't want to accept it - although the coercion seems based on legalisms rather than outright force, which makes it seem more subtle than it really is.

I don't know what the European angle on this is. But it's possibly a more pressing issue than rather abstract notions of European identity.