Whither a Europe of the Regions? Minority nationalist parties and the challenges of European integration

[From the introduction]. This paper argues that even though in the current climate of European integration, the prospects for a Europe of the Regions are dismal indeed, it is too soon to herald the end of minority nationalist support for European integration. The paper draws on evidence from two case studies – of Plaid Cymru in Wales, and the Bloque Nacionalista Galego in Galicia – to argue that minority nationalist party support for European integration is much more complex than a simple assessment of whether European integration is moving closer towards, or further away from, the Europe of the Regions ideal. The argument proceeds in two steps. Firstly, the basis of minority nationalist party support for a regionalist Europe in Wales and Galicia is examined; it is demonstrated that, even though both Plaid Cymru and the BNG had adopted the rhetoric of a regionalised Europe by the mid 1990s, they did so for very different reasons. As well as developments in European integration during the 1980s and early 1990s, minority nationalist party support for a Europe of the Regions was also driven by a basic ideological commitment to European co-operation (in the case of Plaid Cymru) and the specific dynamics of party competition at home at the time (Plaid Cymru and the BNG)