The latest bunch of EU applicants will find it tough to get through the door
http://economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10091470&top_story=1
"Citizens already inside the club are in a funk about further expansion, feeling it has gone too far too fast. Worries about jobs vanishing to lower-paid new members (the “Polish plumber” threat) have given way to still more visceral reactions to poor migrants from the newest member states. Just ask the Italian government, still struggling (badly) to balance its open-border obligations under EU law with demands for the expulsion of Romanian migrants blamed for a crime wave."
- jobs vanishing and a crime wave reminds of the fears associated with opening up our borders to Mexico... essentially the same problem :
- integrating developing (/former communist) economies & political systems into an already (more or less) functioning and flourishing system
- more specifically in this case: the carrot on a stick approach is not going to reform these subpar systems. it's a problem deep in the soil, in the root of the country's very being. not something external stimuli can tackle.
- setting the bar high without providing aid (i.e. carrot on a stick approach) is only going to frustrate the people and stir antagonism towards EU, inspiring a search for extralegal loopholes for attaining membership into the cool club.
- membership achieved w/o stable underlying polit/econ system = exactly what the current EU members fear.
Based on my very (very, very) limited knowledge... either it shouldn't have been established in the first place (too late!) or once established, keep doors closed until further notice... none of this carrot on a stick talk. "When the rest of Europe is ready, then we may talk..." no promises, no expectations.
