Is a European hard core credible? A statistical analysis

The paper analyzes the proposal to create a hard core of European Union (EU) countries committed to deeper and faster integration by studying the economic structure of the proposed grouping. It is divided into two parts. The first examines the relative weight and structural characteristics of the five potential candidates for early membership of the hard core in comparison with the whole EU, the United States and Japan. The second uses principal component and cluster analyses in order to investigate whether these five countries represent a homogenous grouping vis-à-vis the other EU members.