Hegel e il problema dell'unità politica dell'Europa

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relevance of Hegel’s thought in order to argue some aspects of the process of European political unification. Hegel’s account on Europe is to be found in the philosophy of history and is set within the horizon of the so-called ius publicum europaeum, which is marked by a multiplicity of independent states whose relations are codified by national law. Within this horizon there is no place for an idea of the political unification of Europe ; such an idea only emerged when, after the Second World War, this horizon came into crisis. The paper aims to show that some useful elements for dealing with some still problematic issues in the process of European unification can be found not in Hegel’s philosophy of history, but in his philosophy of law, notably in the Hegelian conception of the political unity of the state. Indeed, this is not seen as a monolithic unity (as occurs in the modern concept of the people), but rather as a perpetual process of unification.