The article aimed to determine how the process of shaping, maintaining, and changing the EU identity in the field of equality and non-discrimination took place in a situation where this process had to face both internal and external challenges. The analyses also aimed to explain the behaviour of political actors participating in the aforementioned process. The research material comprised the EU treaties, CJEU judgments, and other documents from the leading EU institutions. The analyses conducted allowed us to capture two trends. First, the identity of the EU as a legal community is losing its clear outline, as internal factors are making the ideas of equality and non-discrimination less specific. There have also been a few actions to reverse this effect. Second, the EU is taking action to confirm its identity as a normative actor in the international environment and to prevent changes in its identity. Challenges within the EU do not constitute a sufficiently strong incentive for the EU to take decisive action to confirm its identity. Factors challenging the EU’s identity are more effective in maintaining the EU’s identity, but they also slow down its dynamics. The political actors’ motivations in these processes are complex, from cost-benefit calculations through institutional conditions to acting based on accepted ideas.
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