Some aspects of national identity and the contemporary integration processes

Article deals with some of the issues concerning national identity and ongoing integration processes in Europe. The conceptions of both the nation and the nation-state are examined from the point of their historical contexts and contemporary events and changes. It is being argued that the nation states in Europe are far from being mere myths or redundant structures since they successfully face the integration challenges and still fulfil many important functions. Author enlists all main currents of European integration (political field, economic co-operation, regional co-operation and civic contacts). Greater attention is paid to the idea of the Europe of regions. As the data from sociological researches indicate, the European public is not much in favour of further strengthening of regions' influence and further divisions of nation states. As the important (if not the most important) stream of integration is considered to be the across border civic co-operation, i.e. establishment and maintenance of informal civic relationships. Aspects that might positively or negatively influence these relationships are demonstrated on an example of the across border co-operation on Czech-German border. The core of the across border co-operation and the creation of the across border community is made by approximately only 5% of local inhabitants, who maintain relationships on the "personal level". The rest of the inhabitants have only occasional and incidental contacts with their foreign neighbours. Article points at some ambivalent tendencies and contradictory phenomena in the processes of European integration.