1. I know the EU is completely against the "two-speed Europe". But that MUST be put in place if the EU is to survive. There's a clear divide between regions in the EU. It is a cultural divide in the way work is seen, perceived, in the way money is handled, on how corruption is seen by citizens, etc. That's why after decades the economies of the PIGS have not adjusted to the rest of the EU, and they probably will never adjust. It's a cultural thing that won't change.
Also, I suppose rich and poor countries don't equally agree with the amount socialism/interventionism the EU should be establishing. For example being from one of the PIGS I like interventionism from the EU because I see local politicians/courts/etc as useless. If you go to court and the verdict is stupid, you can go to a European court. But I suppose people from the north like their local politicians and courts and don't like it when the EU interferes.
2. Many people don't like immigrants. Whether that's racism or not, or whether those people can be educated or not... that's irrelevant. The EU is literally shoving immigrants down people's throats. Immigration from A8 countries MUST be regulated (end of Schengen) and also countries should be able to decide if they want Muslim refugees or not.
Remember this is just my opinion and what I've seen around me as a citizen of one of the PIGS.
My country for example received millions of Romanians/Bulgarians back in the day, so that's what people were against. There was a huge construction bubble, and they came en masse, leaving many locals without a job. As soon as the construction bubble popped, they left en masse. They also greatly increased the insecurity here, with really recurrent news about thefts committed by Romanians, pickpockets, etc. News were flooded with those events. So, you can imagine what the locals ended up thinking of them.
Natives wouldn't say anything negative about rest of slavs, Poles, etc because they simply never met them.
Why do smart people assume that their own familiarity with a subject is a suitable guideline for tossing around opaque acronyms without prior definition? Why are people just supposed to know the acronym?
He points to the acronym PIGS, coined for four crisis-torn, Southern European debtor countries of the eurozone: Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain.
This attitude saddens me - regulation would most likely mean that I would need to get a visa to stay where I am, where I work and where I pay my taxes, which is not how I imagined EU. Just a few years ago, I felt "at home" wherever I went, who cared which nationality you were, you could walk into a government office in Germany, Spain, UK, France, and you would be treated the same as a local citizen. Now? It seems like we are becoming 2nd category citizens, despite the only difference between being a "foreigner" and "natural citizen" is the label on my passport.
Too bad they love buying and selling in the common market. Can't have the cake and eat it too.
Edit: but they sure can downvote. Karma is an excellent fuel.
Now what it triggered is also that every single politician talks about reforming europe ( borders mainly, but also politicaly).
All in all, i'd say it pretty much tighten bounds across european countries than the opposite...until britain suddenly experience an extraordinary growth, that is.
Exactly what kind of people did you talk to? I visited Paris after Brexit and outside some groups on the far right everyone where laughing at the crazy brittons...
Many in Germany and France consider UK hindering advancement in EU, and consider the Brexit a god send
Were many of them associated with each other for one reason or another?
Poland for example is refusing to accept these immigrants and paying a pretty big fine for each one they turn away [1]. Other countries like France and Germany are buckling to the pressure from the EU and accepting them, and we've all seen how well that has worked out for them.
So I think not having to take this crap from the EU is one attractive reason to leave.
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-refuse...
The move came about because of the flood of immigrants coming to Italy and Greece, mostly - and serious concern that neither one of those two countries can deal with the problem on their own. It has been decided(democratically, by representatives from each member country, not some evil court of villains!) that other member states will help lessen the burden, by taking a certain quota of immigrants, so that Italy and Greece don't collapse(even more). Yet in some media(particularly in the UK) it's portrayed as EU telling member countries what to do, without any notion that those countries also voted on this issue and agreed to it.
this is true, but the EU institution used its power to force through a proposal which several countries were extremely upset with.
this was the first real example of Qualified Majority Voting being used in a controversial way, resulting in a lot of people becoming upset... suddenly the EU could no longer be seen as an institution that works almost entirely on consensus
it certainly modified my views on whether or not I wanted the EU institutions gaining more power, or even retaining the ones they have at the moment
What if one EU country wants to do something else? Can't different EU countries just choose to do their own thing, and be ruled by their OWN population, instead of people in Germany deciding what happens to people in Poland?
If greece doesn't want to deal with these immigrants then THEY should chose to close their own borders.
Self determination is the fundamental issue at stake here.
The EU IS telling countries what to do! People in Germany are deciding what happens to people in Poland!
And I'm sure you know very well that "closing borders" wouldn't do a thing when immigrants arrive via boats and land on your beaches asking for asylum. You just can't send people back to active war zones, and that has nothing to do with EU regulations.
It doesn't matter to you, but I am sure it matters a whole lot to the people of Poland (but fuck them, I guess?). Apparently they've changed their mind about this deal, and just want to be left alone.
The EU isn't a suicide pact. People can and will change their mind, and will change the deal along with it.
"You just can't send people back to active war zones, and that has nothing to do with EU regulations."
Then send them to Germany or Sweden. They love the refugees! It is a win win situation. If they really do believe all the things that they say, then it should be no problem, right?
I think you're probably being sarcastic, but after the latest semi truck incident at the holiday market there were reportedly protests outside of Merkel's office. The right wing is gaining traction. I'd be surprised if she is still in power in 3 years.
Well, I am Polish, and "a whole lot of people in Poland" want things that I absolutely disagree with(prohibition of gay marriage, abortion, they want the church to meddle with politics etc etc). So while I wouldn't say "fuck them", I would say that I disagree with their opinion strongly.
>>Then send them to Germany or Sweden. They love the refugees!
There's no need to go from one extreme to another. Basically the options are:
1) Send them back where they came from
2) Try to house them where they arrive
3) Try to distribute them around the EU evenly so that the burden on each country is minimal
Option 1 is probably what most people would want, but that doesn't make it feasible. Even if we assume that we know exactly where they are from, which is not always true, we could probably send back people to countries which are not torn by war. But that still leaves you with people who are genuienly fleeing war, and if you are advocating sending them back there, then well....I think we can finish the discussion here.
Second option is terrible, because neither Italy nor Greece have the capacity to handle this many immigrants. The best they(or anyone) could do is built a huge camp for them, but as you can imagine that would be a distaster very quickly, if done at that scale.
Option number 3 evokes a lot of negative emotions, but unless someone comes up with a better solution, it seems like the best way to go.
Just keep the free trade stuff, but allow countries to control their own borders and things would be good.
Brexit wouldn't have happened if Britain was allowed to have border controls.
The people don't want a lot of things.
> If the EU doesn't, then the whole thing will collapse
And then the people won't even have the option of going to Berlin and work as waitress, while people from Africa or middle east will continue to come here, undisturbed, without a super state trying to control the situation.
It's so obvious that the single states can't control immigration on their own.
If that's what they want, they can be my guests.
Britain can. Breaking into there is MUCH harder than anywhere else. Island nation and all.
"and then the people won't even have the option of going to Berlin and work as waitress"
Orrr..... they will just negotiate and change the deal, so something like this CAN work. This is not all or nothing. There are better solutions, and they will be negotiated.
Agriculture. Again, low cost producers undercutting domestic producers.
And there's legit questions to be had about monetary policy (or the lack thereof), as well as EU courts undermining local law.
Another one is that, on a lot of different matters and areas, different countries just cannot obey to the same laws, and their history, language, and way of thinking are just fundamentally different.
This is too 1930's...