Ten years after the publication of the first edition of the present book, many of the claims we made in 1999 are still valid. However, we have also observed new, salient developments that deserve our critical attention. This is the reason why we decided to write an additional, eighth chapter in which we describe and assess how the ‘story’ continues. We were able to compare across almost twenty years commemorative events that show both continuities and discontinuities in the discursive construction of national identity, and particularly in the construction of the Austrian past, present, and future. Due to Austria's accession to the European Union in 1995, the Austrian nation and Austrian identities have had to be repositioned in the transformed political context in many novel and distinctive ways. Related to new forms of nationalism and transnational orientations, national populist parties have been gaining support across Europe, not least in Austria. They have even joined government coalitions in several European states. These parties have challenged and continue to challenge democratic values, and they oppose European Union policies. These tensions between national and supranational identities are the focus of our new chapter.

Picking up three significant socio-political developments and related ‘discursive events’, we examine changes since 1995 that relate to the construction and transformation of Austrian national identity. We analyse how the official commemorative year 2005 was dealt with in Austria in public and in semi-public spheres (focus group discussions) in 2005 and 2006, and compare the analytical results with our studies on national commemoration in 1995.