Indicator: Multiflow cluster (balance)

Our clusters are closer in size for balance than for weighted intensity, and no major outliers appear for the three defined clusters.
Cluster 1 includes mainly peripheral areas that really belong to senders, in particular for flows such as migration, labour mobility, participation in the Erasmus program, and FDI capital. Nevertheless, this cluster covers most of the ESPON-space regions, including both the periphery and many units central to the traditional core (e.g. Germany, northern France). So by taking into account balance (and not just intensity), we narrow down the group of units constituting the core of European space (in terms of flows).
More-developed or metropolitan areas usually belong to clusters 2 and 3. The difference between them is that cluster 2 "specializes" in being attractive to Erasmus students and FDI capital, and the regions belonging to it have a negative balance in tourism and trade flows. Spatially cluster 2 crosses the ES-PON space from the northwestern part of the continent (Iceland, southern Scandinavia, Ireland, and Great Britain) through the European core to individual regions in southern Italy and Greece. We may assume that cluster 2 corresponds most closely to the quantitatively reduced group of core units. Seen in this way, the core includes all of Great Britain and Ireland as well as extensive areas in northern Italy and Scandinavia.
Meanwhile cluster 3 (smaller) seems to include places — mainly capital regions — that rank distinctively in certain economic dimensions (goods, services, labour mobility). Cluster 3 covers most of the strong economic areas in peripheral zones. These include the capital cities of southern and central-eastern Europe, as well as some industrial areas (Czech Silesia) and tourist regions (on the Mediterranean and overseas). Cluster 3 again groups "islands" that could serve as the basis of a European polycentric sys-tem.