Writing in Mittelweg (in German), German Sociologist Theresa Wobbe takes a look at an important change in the process of European integration: gone are the days in which poorer members of the European Union and its predecessors were built into equal participants. The philosophy was that a continent of highly developed nations would serve everyone on the continent, so the rich countries taxed themselves for the purpose of building up the poor countries.

And it’s worked, most notably in countries on Europe’s geographical periphery, like Ireland, Latvia, and Portugal. Economically backward countries are now able to stand on their own two feet.

But a subtle change in values is emerging, Wobbe says; perhaps it’s a consequence of the success of the policies: we’re no longer talking about building a community of nations; we’re now talking about building a European society.

The difference is a lowering of national and regional identities in favor of creating a new sense of European –ness. The trick is that this is not merely nationalism at a higher scale: the purpose is to create a bigger internal market. That is, rather than building up (relatively poor) Slovakia so that the now (relatively) rich Slovakia may help everyone else prosper, we’re now talking about turning Slovaks into better consumers of the European market.

The key here is that the new, supranational scale of Europe/European Union no longer has as a goal a guarantee of continent-wide political access to a continent-wide citizenship; rather: it’s about continent-wide equality of economic opportunity.

If that’s the case, if Wobbe is right, what we’re seeing here is a new form of society-building, one in which identities and loyalties are entirely stripped of place—of geographical belonging. Slovaks aren’t wished to be the best Slovaks possible; rather Slovaks are wished to be just as economically productive as anyone else.