The Looming Shadows of the Walls. Is a Cosmopolitan Europe still Possible?

In a Europe of numerous lights and shadows, cosmopolitan sociology provides a valid theoretical framework to distinguish themfrom one another. If cosmopolitan sociology is an attempt to understand how individuals, social groups and institutions deal with the challenges of ever more transnational social processes, then the European issue can be fully inserted within such an approach. From this point of view, pursuant to the various austerity policies and recent events involving Syrian refugees, sociology has started to enquire whether a cosmopolitan Europe is still possible. The traces of cosmopolitanism are in fact to be found almost everywhere in the history of Europe and in its Constitutional Treaties. In this context, our essay examines the crisis pervading Europe today and highlights the standing back to a certain extent of cosmopolitan sociology. At the same time,it stresses the hope that a change of direction will occur and the opportunity grasped of reflecting more deeply on the founding principles of cosmopolitan