"EU challenges to domestic politics: A regional nationalist response"

The following examines the extent to which EU institutions and policies have affected resource distribution between center and periphery with member states. As resource distribution changes, so does the politicization of regional nationalist parties. The way that nationalist parties include the EU in their party program, however, is dependent upon the perceived type of influence the EU has upon their region and the political goals of the party itself. Two Mediterranean regions in Spain, Galicia and Catalonia, as well as one non-Mediterranean region, Scotland, are examined to see empirically how the EU affects political territorial dynamics. Although the discussion is a preliminary examination, it does suggest the need to perhaps examine EU policies which later become political inputs within member states. Moreover, the discussion indicates that it may be fruitful to utilize old models of the nation-state to understand how domestic politics have been transformed through European integration