“Europe Was a Party”: A Theoretical Approach to Core-Periphery Political Relations in the Aftermath of the European Union (EU) Crisis

The relationship between core and periphery areas in Europe has changed since the 2008 economic and political crisis. In this study we present a new theoretical approach with the purpose of describing a political framework for the connections among the different areas in the EU. We argue that the EU is divided into five political areas: the Core area (France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Austria), the South area (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece), the West area (United Kingdom and Ireland), the East area (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic and Slovenia) and the North area (Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark). In doing so, we have selected a political movement for each area that is representative of the changes in the liberal democracies in the EU: the French Front National (National Front) for the Core area; the Spanish Unidos Podemos (Together We Can) for the South area; for the West area we have not selected a political party but a political movement, such as Brexit; the Polish Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice) for the East area; and the Swedish Perussuomalaiset (Finns Party) for the North area. We explain how the different political changes in these areas have modified the reality of the situation in the EU. As a consequence of that we conclude that the EU will not be a political entity unless unless there is a substantial change in the political differences between core and periphery.