In the past, when politicians debated the EU’s future, they spoke of a definitive formula for European integration, as defined in a famous lecture in 2000 by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. The accompanying intellectual debate, inaugurated by the philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, defined the nature of European identity, above all, against the foil of the United States, but also in terms of the challenges posed by globalization.