Quote:
Originally posted by Thunderball@May 30 2005, 07:54 PM
To me, anything that will cause proud, historic nations to be assimilated into a whole is a bad thing. The EU is in danger of turning Europe into a multicultural wasteland, which to me is a travesty. I like the idea of many diverse nations holding on to their traditions. I also find it interesting that the (predominantly leftist) politicians seem to love this concept, while the common man rightly sees the cause for concern and says no.
Polls seem to indicate that Netherlands and Britain are going to trash the idea too when it hits their polls.
To me the EU should be a NAFTA-type agreement, and an allowance for free cross-border movement, nothing more, not yet at least.
|
The leftists were against it for economic reasons. France (and several other Euro's) have somewhat bloated pension/welfare systems. I think some of these would have to begin to be scaled back to make the European economy more 'efficient'.
Also, allowing total worker migration was something that a lot of Western EU members aren't fans of. They foresee legions of Latvians and Turks invading to take all the lower paying jobs (and, since many of them are well-educated, the mid/high jobs as well).
I'm sure that the Dutch will vote against it now that the French have. Why not?
Many pro-EU officials claim that this won't slow down integration... I'd like to know what they think _will_ happen though.