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talkpoliticsGreetings, ma'fellow procrastinators politics junkies! Today is the so called Europe Day. Whatever that's supposed to mean. All I know is, it's being commemorated with lots of staged official events in a number of EU member countries. Our cities are no exception. Most of them will illuminate their most prominent landmarks in the colors of the EU flag. There'll be a music and light show at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, at the Municipality Hall in Plovdiv, and the Festival and Congress Center in Varna. Famous dignitaries are going to read "Stories about Europe", including the ambassadors of the major EU countries. The EU flag will be raised at a special ceremony at the Presidency. The President himself will be greeting the Honorable Guard. Etc.
In the meantime, a Reuters poll suggests that almost half of the Europeans want referenda in their respective countries about their future EU membership, fashioned after the Brexit referendum in the UK. The poll included countries like Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, France and Sweden. And this is happening just a month before the UK referendum. The poll shows that nearly 45% of the respondents want referenda of their own, and about 1/3 want their country to get an opportunity to leave the EU, as they don't like the way it is being run, the way its institutions are being set up, and the disconnect between the ruling elites and the people - the former seemingly ignoring the interests and the voice of their constituents. Especially regarding issues like the trade agreement with the US, and the handling of the refugee crisis.
It's normal to demand change if you figure your leaders and representatives are no longer working in your interests, be it on issues of immigration, or the economy, or anything else. What is curious here is that the emphasis is artificially being put on celebrating the EU rather than what this day was originally meant to be about: the defeat of Hitler's Germany in WW2. Notably, the ones to still be celebrating the latter are countries mostly to the east of the EU, which suffered the hardest blow of Hitler's atrocities. It's almost as if the western part of Europe is trying to deliberately forget and ignore that part of history, and substitute it with something else. Something artificial.
But I digress. The question behind that poll is essentially, is the end of the EU coming? Well, if you ask our own politicians here, they'd say no. Why? Because they're making some good money out of the Euro subsidies - in fact, our economy, after having been dismantled and sold out to those same Europeans for coins back in the 90s (voluntarily or not), now almost completely relies on those funds to keep running. Which is a sad banana-republic sort of predicament to be in, but we've got no one else but ourselves to blame for it. Because we didn't have the guts to preserve ourselves against that pressure. And we haven't had the expertise, unity and willingness to gather ourselves since then.
So, no, our politicians would rather prefer that the EU stays, and in its current form. They don't want the easy Euro money to stop pouring in. They don't want us to stop being a banana republic, as that would require effort and brains. Meanwhile, there are still some societies (including in Central and East Europe) where the civic society does exist, and has not fully fallen asleep just yet. And where there are politicians who still hold the interests of their constituents sacrosanct, and act accordingly. Or if they don't, their constituents do not shy away from reminding them about their duties, and about the reason those politicians have been sent to their positions in the first place. Hence the interest about either changing the EU to match the interests of its citizens better, or completely dismantle it and start anew, if the prevailing part of its bureaucrats (or "powdered poodles" as I call them) refuse to do the former. Not in my country, though. We'll never have a referendum about staying in the EU, and we'll never start asserting our own interests within the EU itself. And nothing is going to change around here. Banana republic it shall be, then. As for the EU, it's got to either reform, or die. As the popular joke goes around here, whichever alliance we've joined, has always later failed. Guess for some reason we're going to be the bane of this one as well. Oh well. Empires tend to come and go, and we're still here.
Will be curious to observe, though.
In the meantime, a Reuters poll suggests that almost half of the Europeans want referenda in their respective countries about their future EU membership, fashioned after the Brexit referendum in the UK. The poll included countries like Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, France and Sweden. And this is happening just a month before the UK referendum. The poll shows that nearly 45% of the respondents want referenda of their own, and about 1/3 want their country to get an opportunity to leave the EU, as they don't like the way it is being run, the way its institutions are being set up, and the disconnect between the ruling elites and the people - the former seemingly ignoring the interests and the voice of their constituents. Especially regarding issues like the trade agreement with the US, and the handling of the refugee crisis.
It's normal to demand change if you figure your leaders and representatives are no longer working in your interests, be it on issues of immigration, or the economy, or anything else. What is curious here is that the emphasis is artificially being put on celebrating the EU rather than what this day was originally meant to be about: the defeat of Hitler's Germany in WW2. Notably, the ones to still be celebrating the latter are countries mostly to the east of the EU, which suffered the hardest blow of Hitler's atrocities. It's almost as if the western part of Europe is trying to deliberately forget and ignore that part of history, and substitute it with something else. Something artificial.
But I digress. The question behind that poll is essentially, is the end of the EU coming? Well, if you ask our own politicians here, they'd say no. Why? Because they're making some good money out of the Euro subsidies - in fact, our economy, after having been dismantled and sold out to those same Europeans for coins back in the 90s (voluntarily or not), now almost completely relies on those funds to keep running. Which is a sad banana-republic sort of predicament to be in, but we've got no one else but ourselves to blame for it. Because we didn't have the guts to preserve ourselves against that pressure. And we haven't had the expertise, unity and willingness to gather ourselves since then.
So, no, our politicians would rather prefer that the EU stays, and in its current form. They don't want the easy Euro money to stop pouring in. They don't want us to stop being a banana republic, as that would require effort and brains. Meanwhile, there are still some societies (including in Central and East Europe) where the civic society does exist, and has not fully fallen asleep just yet. And where there are politicians who still hold the interests of their constituents sacrosanct, and act accordingly. Or if they don't, their constituents do not shy away from reminding them about their duties, and about the reason those politicians have been sent to their positions in the first place. Hence the interest about either changing the EU to match the interests of its citizens better, or completely dismantle it and start anew, if the prevailing part of its bureaucrats (or "powdered poodles" as I call them) refuse to do the former. Not in my country, though. We'll never have a referendum about staying in the EU, and we'll never start asserting our own interests within the EU itself. And nothing is going to change around here. Banana republic it shall be, then. As for the EU, it's got to either reform, or die. As the popular joke goes around here, whichever alliance we've joined, has always later failed. Guess for some reason we're going to be the bane of this one as well. Oh well. Empires tend to come and go, and we're still here.
Will be curious to observe, though.
