As the U.K. with its perennially different opinions about everything heading out the door, the EU is essentially three caucuses. One is centered around Germany and includes the Benelux, Nordic and Baltic countries. German Chancellor Angela Merkel isn’t doing anything to build this bloc: rather, the countries are united by similar economic policies, a belief in tighter budgets and, until very recently, by a relative inclusiveness and tolerance toward immigrants (there is now a backlash against it).
Leonid Bershidsky: A nationalist Eastern Europe could reshape the EU
The Foreign Ministers of the Visegrad countries (L to R) Miroslav Lajcak of Slovakia, Witold Waszczykowski of Poland, Peter Szijjarto of Hungary and Lubom\u00edr Zaor\u00e1lek of the Czech Republic pose for a family photo in Budapest on August 29, 2016.
The European Union has never been homogeneous, but recent policy clashes and particularly the immigration issue are making its split into three sub-blocs - the North, the South and the East - increasingly visible. Two strongmen, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland's ruling party, make no secret of trying to create an axis for the East, which would begin a "cultural counter-revolution" in the EU.
