IS A EUROPEAN HARD-CORE CREDIBLE - A STATISTICAL-ANALYSIS

The paper analyzes the proposal to create a hard core of European Unio n (EU) countries committed to deeper and faster integration by studyin g the economic structure of the proposed grouping. It is divided into two parts, The first examines the relative weight and structural chara cteristics of the five potential candidates for early membership of th e hard core in comparison with the whole EU, the United States and Jap an. Thr second uses principal component and cluster analyses in order to investigate whether these five countries represent a homogenous gro uping vis-a-vis the other EU members.