Introduction: ‘Official Stories’—how National Governments Narrate the EU

Amidst growing scholarly interest in narratives, little attention has been paid to narrative-making by governments in the context of the EU. This chapter sets out why the way in which governments imagine, explain, and justify their positioning in respect of the EU is important. It considers the promise held by the study of government EU narratives for understanding the purposes, operation, and evolution of the EU, and for offerings insights into whether governments can shape or must reflect wider societal views on ‘Europe’. After a brief survey of the formal narratives developed by EU institutions since the 1950s to enable comparison with national EU narratives, it outlines the questions addressed in the country studies, and the comparative and theoretical debates that the volume attempts to inform.