When Country Matters More than Europe: What Role for EU Cohesion Policy?

Resumen

This paper analyses the relationship between country and European identity, and how Cohesion Policy can influence it. While the two sentiments are positively correlated, empirical evidence shows that this association significantly decreased in the last two decades, jointly with an increase in the support of nationalisms and Eurosceptic parties. It is therefore interesting to understand what is the role of EU regional policy in mediating citizens’ identification. To elements of Cohesion Policy are expected to be associated to the citizens’ preference for their country over Europe: the intensity of funding and the perceived outcome of EU regional policy. Results show that regional divergence is mirrored by a divergence also in identity, i.e. citizens identify more and more with their country and less with Europe. On the other hand, the intensity of funding is substantially neutral in this process.