Publication

This essay takes stock of the relative cohesion of the EU. Perhaps surprisingly, it concludes that between 2007 and 2014 the overall bonds between EU member states actually grew. Some other key findings include the following: 1) Southern European countries such as Spain, Italy and Portugal became less cohesive during the above period, primarily because of the financial crisis; 2) East-Central European countries, such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, became more interconnected; 3) the UK has had a noticeably weak “cohesion profile”; and 4) cohesion isn’t static; it’s actually subject to constant change.