Does "Shakespeare Nation" really exist?

The European Union is going through one of its worst periods in its political history. With its many divisions, permanently shifting borders, international terrorism, migrant crisis, Brexit, Russian spies and Trump’s economic attacks, Europe’s self-definition is deeply fraught. Yet, if on the one hand, as many foreign affairs commentators have written, there is no European passport to speak of, on the other hand, the current state of affairs has prompted Susan Bennett to speak of an emerging “fantasy that imagines theatregoers as passport holders in Shakespeare nation” (Susan Bennett 2016). Would a passport in “Shakespeare nation” contribute to forge that common European cultural identity that, according to many politicians and commentators, could prevent people from taking refuge under the umbrella of nationalistic tendencies?