The aim of this paper is to trace and scrutinize some of the underlying forces that might contribute to explaining the current skepticism about a policy of debordering Europe. The author therefore discusses why prefiguring a borderless Europe based on European identity has stumbled into misconceived conceptions of the nation, and then presents an explanation of the transformative dynamics that undermine the vision of a borderless Europe. The paper concludes that a borderless Europe will remain

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... vision as long as the idea of a European identity cannot establish a reliable alternative to its national counterpart, but multiple cosmopolitan forces still keep pushing towards debordering Europe.