How post-Yugoslav intellectuals speak for the nation in the context of Europeanisation: the case of Croatia The intricate relationship between national identities and the European integration process has attracted research also in the field of critical discourse studies (e.g. Krzyżanowski, 2010). In this growing body of research, however, little attention has been devoted to intellectuals and their capacity to act as spokespersons for their national communities, particularly through articulating widespread concerns, shared social representations, as well as a common vision for the future. This paper begins to bridge this gap by exploring the discursive strategies that Croatian intellectuals employed to ‘speak for the nation’ on the occasion of Croatia’s accession into the European Union in 2013. Building on inquiries into the discursive construction of national identities (Wodak et al., 2009), I elaborate an original approach which combines the notions of intellectual spokespersonship (Pels, 2000) with conceptions of the intellectual as ‘nation-maker’ (Suny & Kennedy, 1999). I then apply this framework to a set of opinion pieces about Croatia’s membership in the EU which were circulated in the national press. The analysis focuses on the articulation of the nation as a project aimed to bring prosperity to its members. The case of Croatia is relevant as it illustrates how the idea of nation might occupy an ambivalent position vis-à-vis the ‘European project’, which sheds light on the complex interplay between nationhood and Europeanisation in general.