Looking up to Brussels? National Imaginaries and Their Relation to Political Europe

The paper defines and examines the outline of “Political Europe” by describing the historical context in which it was born at the end of WWII and the process by which its center came to be a narrow band of land stretching from Belgium to Alsace. It then suggests how the European countries may be classified in four categories according to their relation to such a center (“self-centered”, “median”, “peripheral” and “autonomous”). This classification helps understand their conflicting motivations to join or stay apart from the various steps of the European construction process, particularly their political reactions to continental challenges such as the recent crisis of sovereign debt.