7 ms·

Based on my recent experience of visiting Europe - yes, it is. I stayed mostly in France, was there during the Brexit vote, and everyone I spoke to was pretty

by Mikeb85 10y ago

Based on my recent experience of visiting Europe - yes, it is. I stayed mostly in France, was there during the Brexit vote, and everyone I spoke to was pretty keen on exiting the EU, voting right-wing, and seeing it all crumble. They also have several separatist movements, especially in Brittany, which seems to be more anti-EU than anti-French...

akjainaj 10y ago
Living in one of the PIGS, I can tell there's not much going on here about leaving the EU. Nobody has seriously brought it up. That said, I see important problems in the EU going on now that must be solved: 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.
- _delirium 10y ago
  I think #2 varies widely within the EU. Immigration from outside the EU (especially Muslim immigration) is a hot-button issue everywhere, but intra-EU immigration is a less contentious issue in many countries. In the UK there is a lot of opposition to immigration from eastern Europe in general (and the proverbial "Polish plumber" is a fixture of political debate), but that's not as big a worry in, say, Germany, where people are mostly worried about Syrians and not very concerned about Poles.
  - akjainaj 10y ago
    You are very correct, but it depends on what your country has received. 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.
- pound 10y ago
  for those wondering: PIGS - Portugal, Italy, Greece & Spain (some people jump to comments)
  - tritosomal 10y ago
    Yeah, trying to google that acronym would have been utterly futile. 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?
    - grzm 10y ago
      The article defines the acronym: He points to the acronym PIGS, coined for four crisis-torn, Southern European debtor countries of the eurozone: Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain.
    - akjainaj 10y ago
      If you google "pigs eu" you can find what you are looking for. In any case, the term is defined in the article.
  - 0xD3ADB33F 10y ago
    Talk about a loaded acronym.
- gambiting 10y ago
  >>The EU is literally shoving immigrants down people's throats. Immigration from A8 countries MUST be regulated (end of Schengen) 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.
- walterstucco 10y ago
  Coming from Italy I don't feel like a pig. Maybe Spanish and Portuguese feel different about themselves...
- rbanffy 10y ago
  > Many people don't like immigrants. 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.
bsaul 10y ago
I suppose you didn't stay in France after the brexit. Seeing all the mess that it triggered, such as the fact that uk went behind france almost instantly in economic rankings, all this pretty much made everyone here realize those kind of votes do have consequences. 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.
api 10y ago
Question: what is the primary grievance against the EU?
- artursapek 10y ago
  I don't know about primary, but I think a big one is the EU forcing countries to meet a quota of "refugee" immigration. 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-refuses-to-take-a-single-refugee-because-of-security-fears-a7020076.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-refuse...
  - gambiting 10y ago
    The interesting thing here that it's not "EU vs EU member countries" - members do come up with, and vote on ideas. It's not like evil EU parliament said that everyone has to take immigrants, so everyone now has to and that's it. 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.
    - blibble 10y ago
      > 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
bostand 10y ago
> everyone I spoke to was pretty keen on exiting the EU 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
maxerickson 10y ago
How many people did you speak to? Were many of them associated with each other for one reason or another?
rbanffy 10y ago
I'm sorry for your experiences. Here in Ireland people seem to be very favorable to the EU. At the office we tender to call Brexit by more descriptive names such as Bruckup or Brusterfuck.

by Mikeb85 10y ago

akjainaj 10y ago

Living in one of the PIGS, I can tell there's not much going on here about leaving the EU. Nobody has seriously brought it up. That said, I see important problems in the EU going on now that must be solved: 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.

_delirium 10y ago
I think #2 varies widely within the EU. Immigration from outside the EU (especially Muslim immigration) is a hot-button issue everywhere, but intra-EU immigration is a less contentious issue in many countries. In the UK there is a lot of opposition to immigration from eastern Europe in general (and the proverbial "Polish plumber" is a fixture of political debate), but that's not as big a worry in, say, Germany, where people are mostly worried about Syrians and not very concerned about Poles.
- akjainaj 10y ago
  You are very correct, but it depends on what your country has received. 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.
pound 10y ago
for those wondering: PIGS - Portugal, Italy, Greece & Spain (some people jump to comments)
- tritosomal 10y ago
  Yeah, trying to google that acronym would have been utterly futile. 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?
  - grzm 10y ago
    The article defines the acronym: He points to the acronym PIGS, coined for four crisis-torn, Southern European debtor countries of the eurozone: Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain.
  - akjainaj 10y ago
    If you google "pigs eu" you can find what you are looking for. In any case, the term is defined in the article.
- 0xD3ADB33F 10y ago
  Talk about a loaded acronym.
gambiting 10y ago
>>The EU is literally shoving immigrants down people's throats. Immigration from A8 countries MUST be regulated (end of Schengen) 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.
walterstucco 10y ago
Coming from Italy I don't feel like a pig. Maybe Spanish and Portuguese feel different about themselves...
rbanffy 10y ago
> Many people don't like immigrants. 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.

bsaul 10y ago

I suppose you didn't stay in France after the brexit. Seeing all the mess that it triggered, such as the fact that uk went behind france almost instantly in economic rankings, all this pretty much made everyone here realize those kind of votes do have consequences. 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.

api 10y ago

Question: what is the primary grievance against the EU?

artursapek 10y ago
I don't know about primary, but I think a big one is the EU forcing countries to meet a quota of "refugee" immigration. 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-refuses-to-take-a-single-refugee-because-of-security-fears-a7020076.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-refuse...
- gambiting 10y ago
  The interesting thing here that it's not "EU vs EU member countries" - members do come up with, and vote on ideas. It's not like evil EU parliament said that everyone has to take immigrants, so everyone now has to and that's it. 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.
  - blibble 10y ago
    > 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

bostand 10y ago

> everyone I spoke to was pretty keen on exiting the EU 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

maxerickson 10y ago

How many people did you speak to? Were many of them associated with each other for one reason or another?

rbanffy 10y ago

I'm sorry for your experiences. Here in Ireland people seem to be very favorable to the EU. At the office we tender to call Brexit by more descriptive names such as Bruckup or Brusterfuck.