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Introduction: European politics nowadays ] 19 citizens on the basis of their interest in European-level debates. Many think that any such interest can only be generated along genuine political conflicts, which make citizens participate in public deliberations. Today, the main conflicts in European-level political debates seem to revolve around the issues of sovereignty, identity, and solidarity (Grande and Hutter 2016, 12). These certainly hold a degree of emotional mobilisation capacity, but are not directly connected to European citizens’ daily lives enough that they could have a real impact on their level of political engagement. Not only is the degree of politicisation of EU-related matters being debated among EU scholars, but also whether the politicisation of European integration is a positive trend to encourage, or a negative trend to prevent. Some share the opinion of Stefano Bartolini that in the lack of solid political structures in place to avoid unmanageable tensions and conflicts, any politicisation of the Union may overwhelm its weak platform, presenting a major risk for European integration at large (Bartolini 2006; see also Magnette and Papadopoulos 2008). Others think that the politicisation of the EU is neither good, nor bad per se; or that this question has become redundant anyway, as the politicisation of European integration should be accepted as an irreversible fait accompli. THE NATIONAL POLITICS LEVEL The European Unions legitimacy crisis, and its politicisation, is strongly intertwined with national political dynamics at the level of its Member States. This brings us to a controversy: the voices calling for politicisation at the EU level are contradicted by voices calling for depoliticisation at the national level - often from the same mouths. This contributes to a view shared by many, including your author, that enhancing the democratic legitimacy of the EU cannot be achieved through the simple imitation of national political structures at the European level. EU crises are only one source of the political malaise across the continent, which is also rooted in social and political transformations and unease at the national level. We will look into these by focusing on a few subjectively selected pieces of the jigsaw, without the ambition of presenting the full picture. a. Changing societies When discussing the state of European societies, an inevitable subject that comes to the forefront is demographic decline. The renowned Italian demographer Massimo Livi-Bacci suggests that five demographic trends deserve particular attention in this regard: the decline of mortality and increasing life expectancy; the decline of fertility rates below the replacement
