Academic Paper from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 7,5 (Niederlaendisches System), University of Groningen, course: European Policy-Making, language: English, abstract: The perception of a collective identity is of great significance for policy-making processes. This paper substantiates the following claims: collective identities are socially constructed and the political attention toward a shared European identity has steadily grown within the past decades. This shift is visible within the legal framework of the Erasmus project which has become the EU's flagship in terms of identity shaping processes. While the 1987 decision on establishing Erasmus lacked indicators of an identity-shaping purpose the renewed Erasmus+ regulation puts a clear focus on the idea of creating a European mindset.