I don't think the WSJ is claiming that all of Europe shares the same food and language. The notion of a culture can be contextually scoped and only include com

I don't think the WSJ is claiming that all of Europe shares the same food and language. The notion of a culture can be contextually scoped and only include commonalities across that scope. You could talk about a US culture. You could talk about a Southern US culture. You could drill down further to talk about a Louisiana culture. One could say that the EU and its laws embody commonalities across Europe that create the outlines of a culture.