Drawing on hermeneutics, cultural anthropology and critical social theory, this article analyses different ways of ‘speaking about the European Union’. Firstly, it argues that ‘Europe’ should be seen as an imagined space to which different social and political actors attribute different meanings over time. Secondly, it points out that intersubjective moment of (self-)identification of Europe is of paramount importance for what is Europe today, especially in context of postmodernity and contemporary technocratic modes of the EU governance. Lastly, it calls for establishment of Critical European Studies and puts an emphasis on the role academic critique in ‘speaking about the EU’.