There has been plenty of talk about two Europes, which evolved from being a story about the peripheral PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) to being one about the EU’s north and south, because it was clear that Italy and potentially France also faced large debt and bank problems. This is often portrayed as a contrast between a hard-working, Protestant, disciplined northern Europe (Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia) against a lazy, profligate Catholic-Orthodox south. But the real division is not a cultural one; it is between a clientelistic and non-clientelistic Europe.
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