Zur Konstruktion der EU als Wertegemeinschaft in der deutschen Öffentlichkeit

The EU is commonly understood as a community of values. This shared set of values is increasingly coming under pressure, as political disputes in Poland and Hungary show. However, less is known about how the EU is discursively constructed as a community of values in the public sphere. This article builds on research on mediatized value conflicts, value change in Europe and value framing and proposes a new typology of values that classifies values as institutionalist, individualist and collectivist. Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis methods, the public discourse on the EU as a community of values in seven German print media from 2019 to 2021 is examined. In the first step, it is examined which values appear together in the discourse. This reveals a focus on the rule of law and democracy as primary values and freedom and solidarity as secondary values. In the second step, six frames are identified that construct the EU as a community of values. The discourse is inherent to the crisis, as it links the discussion of values with crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the crisis surrounding the European migration regime. In addition, a danger from within due to populist parties and authoritarian tendencies in EU member states can be distinguished from the danger from outside. The latter serves as a value-oriented demarcation from other states such as Russia and China. Frames that emphasize the unity of the EU and the EU as a peace project are less represented in the discourse. The work contributes to a better understanding of the EU as a community of values and which values are ascribed to it in the public debate in Germany.