Subject: Is European Union good or bad thing?

I dont like be part of EU. I dont like tendences to make common army, common politics, common history,...

I dont like EU regulations, EU external market tariffs, subdizition of agriculture,...

I like European flag and anthem.

Whats your opinion about EU?

I don't like it, most of West-European companies go to Eastern-Europe where they have to pay much less for employees, people are losing jobs here but in Poland and other of those countries they "steal" our work.

You are right but I am not sure if its matter of EU. The companies went to eastern countries before these countries were in EU. Now they started moving even more eastern...
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By the way, what's the matter now in Belgium? I mean, have you established a government already?

We have so many governments, we'll never be without government;)

But yes, they have formed some kind of temporary transit-government to take the most urgent decisions.
In march or april a full government will take over.

nope, they managed to establish a temporary government (meaning the current prime minister took a longer term and ministers were chosen from all current fractions, together with those who won the elections)

Our ministers are dumbasses, whoever voted for them should be hanged or something, actually, there are no good politicians in Belgium, they just want money money money

I don't really like the Union.

It appears they won't rest until the squeezed every farmer.

I'm positive about the European Union however I believe we're currently going in the wrong direction. The European Union tries to be a superstate and is trying to direct and coordinate everything. That, in my opinion, is wrong. Europe should not be there to rule, to centralise our national governments, but to cooperate. Therefore I believe we may be glad the European Constitution was rejected by the French and Dutch. The European Union should not have constitution as that would imply there should be a central government to rule complete Europe instead of cooperating with other European countries. Therefore the European Union should, in my opinion, also not have an anthem. I will never like the European anthem.

"I don't like it, most of West-European companies go to Eastern-Europe where they have to pay much less for employees, people are losing jobs here but in Poland and other of those countries they "steal" our work."

That's not true. This only applies to jobs which require only a low education or none at all. Jobs Western Europeans shouldn't want to have. I've been to a lot companies lately and the most big countries want to stay here as there is a lot of expertise here, which isn't there in Eastern Europe or Asia. The companies who needed to move already have been moved, I think. Lot of Dutch companies see the education of Eastern Europeans inferior compared to Dutch education.

Yes I am not againist free internal market, not fully againist Euro and free movement should be good (but also dangerous, I am little afraid of Schengen). Well anthem is only what comes to my mind when I was searching some positives. Of course my national one is much better:)

I am also happy that Dutch and even French refused European constitution. But without major change of French or German politicians its only matter of time...this is another what I dont like, I dont feel there are many possibilities to outvote what these two countries want.
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This only applies to jobs which require only a low education or none at all.

Well, not completely true either :P

Jobs that require no skill at all intradable industries can't last much in eastern Europe, and that's quite independent of EU as countries really concentrating most low-skilled labour intensive production are outside it's borders.
What makes eastern Europe attractive to many companies is the relative abundance of "quite" educated labour force at lower wages, with "quite" meaning, for example, at the technician level.
Just an example: in Spain you can find many college educated workers, and you will also see a lot of non-skilled workers in construction industry, but it's hard (or was a cup of years ago when last checked :P) to find specalized workers for this industry, people with technical education to do certain parts of the process of building a house. And when you find them, they turn out to come from the east ;)

Similarily, that's a reason to make cars, but not T-Shirts, in these countries :P

Anyway, jobs being "stealed" (?), companies reloation, etc could take a whole thread to debate, and we're stealing Red's thread with it :P I really want to read what people think ;)

You're right about the first part. With none education at all I was referring to Asian children making Nike-shoes.

About the other part: that's what we call low education here. And people in the construction sector don't need to be afraid to lose their jobs as their working local. You can't construct Dutch houses in Poland. Only problem might be the immigration of Eastern European workers, but that is not really a problem. Polish workers, for example, mostly take jobs which no Dutchmen wants to take anymore. That's often because it's dirty and bad paid work. They don't steal jobs from Dutch. It's true that companies are moving to the east, but often that means that only low educated jobs are moved to the east while the number of people which are educated for it decreases. The service sector is growing rapidly in Western-Europe and people don't need to be afraid to lose their jobs in these sectors. Most jobs in the service sector require a middle level of education. Most first and also much second generation inhabitants are unsuitable for this kind of labor. These jobs also can't be moved to Eastern Europe cause they have to be done here. The labor force will slowly start decreasing and the number of old people will rapidly start decreasing the next couple of decades.

Most companies don't move anymore. Companies who needed to make a move already have been moved to South-Eastern Asia, remaining companies don't move because they can't get skilled laborers for a significantly lower price anywhere else. Besides that they often also don't want to move because they want to keep expertise in the Netherlands and keep feeling with their company. You, for examply, can't do top-secret laboratory work in China or India, your technology may be stolen.

With Western Europe I only include Great-Brittain, Ireland, The Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and France. Spain simply is not comparable to those countries. Social status and educational level are not the same in Spain as in Western Europe. It's not very long ago we imported Italians and Spanish. Foreign workers came in this order: Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Moroccans and now Polish, Czech and other Eastern-Europeans.

My country is struggling to enter the EU...I,myself,don't want to be a part of EU...

I don't like to be part of EU. We (my country) should be able to decide what we do and how we do it and not some people who don't know the differences between Finland and countries in south/middle Europe.

50% good
30% bad
20% neutral

this is my thought, so I voted good..

You're right. Those stupid people in Brussels decided we're not allowed to walk to our islands anymore:S