Simply put, it strongly interferes with making people feel like 'Europeans' rather than French, German etc, and interferes with the final goal of the United States of Europe.


IMO the UK (well, England certainly) would never have been party to this, and would have to leave the project to escape it because another of the EU's goals was to remove any veto powers - so better brexit now and suffer for 5+ years some than have to leave in a much more catastrophic way in 10 or whatever years.

It brings me out in a cold sweat thinking about how we could have stayed in and possibly been driven to that in the middle future.

Well at least the surge of the AFD has other reasons.
The AFD had its first big moment when they advocated against helping Greece. Their second moment came when Merkel opened the door for the refugees who lived under terrible conditions in Hungary. Free movement has nothing to do why the AFD was so popular for a time. Free movement only includes people having a EU-passport.
And if you check the program of the AFD you will find that they are promoting lots of ideas which would hurt the working class longterm and they also have a pretty conservative view of women. Its pretty much again lots of people voting against their self interest unless you just dont want Muslim people in our country and if thats your only concern.

Yeah, that's fair.

it's was a major reason for brexit, but it's not what's fueling wilders/le pen/afd/etc. that's a another kind of immigration. freedom of movement is much less controversial outside of the uk.

it can be reformed. there'll probably fairly soon be more restrictions on work benefit rules and companies stationing workers in other countries. but it is one of the most essential parts of what makes it an union. it's been in place from the start and is rightfully one of the proudest achievements of the eu/eec. it would be a disaster to do away with.

the is the same silly idea that the eu is something divorced from the member states. the body making the decisions on freedom of movement isnt some abstract eu entity of your imagination. it's the leaders of the member states.

Nobody has this goal and you are wrong on so many levels. Quote a decent source.


Again glad the UK is gone. A democratic EU would not be possible with the UK. If you dont understand this, reflect how something could be democratic if a minority could veto anything it doesn't like.

There are a couple of explanations for it, which makes it a complicated issue. The technocratic explanation is, that the single market is a chair that needs all four legs to work properly. Freedom of capital, freedom of goods, freedom of services and freedom of movement. For the market to work properly you cant restrict those things. Take freedom of movement from that list, what do you have? You can send money, goods and services all over the continent but the people arent allowed to go were the work is. It is also important for the economy to have all four legs on the chair produce wealth and in turn benefit the people.

The non capitalistic but humanistic explanation is, that freedom of movement is one of the greatest achievements for the individual and collective freedom of EU citizens (except for 70 years of piece). It is hard to overstate how great this is. You cant afford to study in the UK? Ok, just get your things and study in the Netherlands were it is for free. You cant find work in Spain, pack your things and go to Germany. What about the bureaucracy? Oh yeah, you are treated as if you were a citizen of that country so there is none!

And lets not accept the picture the far right tries to paint, that this leads to criminal migrants who either steal our jobs or our welfare. Were we have the most migrants (big cities) people are most welcome of them, and most welcoming of the EU. People are the least accepting of migrants in the parts were there are the least migrants...

... let me just pick the Germany as example. Saxony does have around 3% migrants. I was in the biggest city there (Dresden) a couple weeks back on a business trip and our business partner brought up how difficult it is to find personal. This is also the place were the AfD is very strong. The AfD tough on migration and the people who are toughest about it aren't affected by it at all.

So why shelve freedom of movement? Because a racist party who blames migrants and refugees, rather then tackling the reals problems, demands it? This wouldn't make sense at all.

Iam not saying that there arent any problems in the UK or Germany or most other European country's especially for the blue collar worker. But they dont have much to do with freedom of movement or migrants, those are just the scapegoats.

It will get less and less democratic given a chance.

This is based on your years of experience in international political institutions or you gut feeling?

The notion that workers follow the work all around the EU may seem like a dream scenario for some but others want to have a home, raise a family and be a part of a community. Moving country to country following work isn't practical for most.

If freedom of movement is so great why limit it to just the EU? EU has loads of trade deals for freedom of capital, freedom of goods and freedom of services, why is freedom of movement expressly excluded? Hatred of foreigners? Why should people in Africa & Asia be denied the opportunities offered by Europe just because of where they were born? Sounds discriminatory to me.

If you're suggesting that there are no criminal or welfare migrants then it is clear you're not having an honest debate.

This highlights the problem you are unable to see. It's not hard to get people to take up work, it is hard to get people to work for a wage which is not enough to provide for yourself and your family. Sure, some people from eastern europe will come to UK/Germany/France, live 5 to a room, work 7 days a week for minimum wage and then go home after 3 months with the equivalent of a years pay at home (or more) but clearly such conditions are not acceptable for someone who wants to live here permanently, buy a home and support a family.

Low pay is the root cause and the establishments solution to this is simply to bring in workers who will work for less. That's globalisation and that's the EU dream, bring everyone down to the bottom whilst the elite get richer and richer.

'Freedom of movement' as you call it is simply an exodus from poor countries and a movement to richer countries. The idea that there is an equal flow in and out of all the EU countries is completely false and a lie.

Maybe the aim of the EU should be to increase the living standards of all its members to that of Germany/UK/France but we haven't seen any of that.

Wow, just wow. Google supply and demand and then ignore reality.

Trade Union planning protests on Friday in Slovakia against people from poorer parts of Europe working for cheaper:

https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20517234/...oreigners.html

Ok



You got to draw the line somewhere.



Iam not suggesting that. But the far right is saying that our problems are because of the migrants which is bull****.



First of all, you are blaming the EU for something it is not responsible for. The UK is free to raise the minimum wage. Second of all. the UK does have one of the biggest income inequality's in the EU. The UK is one of the most neoliberal driving forces within the EU and therefor a driving force behind the income inequality. So i don't see how this is "the EU dream" while in reality the UK is the driving force behind it.

I cant explain the concept to you, if you don't want to understand it. It is a century old tool. F.e. Germany was once hundreds of feudal regions, where there was no freedom of movement of freedom of goods. So if you wanted to go from north to south you had to cross dozens f borders and pay a lot taxes to do so. All i can say in my simple mind, is that iam glad this isnt the case anymore.


I dont even get why you are so angry The UK is out and got what they wanted. Be happy about it?


UK´s economy being down in the ****ter is up to the UK and not migrants or the UK. Deny it and you just waste more tie ignoring problems that should be fixed

I believe "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish" is the traditional line.

How quickly some people forget as soon as they find themselves on the right side of the line.

observing reality, in the main.

He's right.

The majority of problems facing the working classes come from the lack of a rise in real wages despite productivity increases. They work harder and their bosses pay themselves more.

Immigration effects are very minor by comparison. You can argue the toss about the impact but you will find almost no acadeic justification for the notion that immigration is hurting the indigenous working class in europe.

If immigration were the big issue then reality would produce some numbers: you never see any and there's a reason for that.

Weird. Almost as if the bosses could just replace them with an unlimited number of people from other countries.

people saying stuff like this when they havent even spent 5 min actually considering the issue will never stop annoying me. there's plenty reason to think immigration/freedom of movement isnt hurting wages even after having googled supply and demand. it probably doesnt and if it does it's some incredibly small amount.

Do you actually think they are going to pay working class British people a living wage? Because you would have to be very naive to believe that.

Now UK companies can't hire EU labour, do you think they are not going to use non-eu labour, use interns, use slave labour from job centres, or just automate whole sections of the labour force? Do you not think they are already doing those things? Have you been in a supermarket or bank recently?
Do you notice the tills and cashiers desks being filled by Brits?

The AfD isn't growing. Quite the opposite. They polled between 2-8% between their founding in 2013 until the summer of 2015 when the extent of the refugee crisis became apparent. Then until the summer of 2016 their numbers climbed into the 13-14% range when a steady decline began and they are back down to 8-9% with no end in sight.
Their temporary popularity surge was solely due to the refugee crisis and Merkel's handling of it which has nothing to do with free movement for EU citizens.

this thread is all pretty fun. not least because it's obviously juncker that has called up the paper.


https://twitter.com/JeremyCliffe/sta...10953353367552

c/p for those without twitter

i do wish the eu would focus less on the bill. it's not that much money, with the rebate the uk net contribution to the eu is something like 0.25% of uk gdp so much less of eu27 gdp, and talking about money is always unseemly.

I sometimes think the UK strategy is to be so incompetent and delusional that the EU has to organise a deal so good for the UK that we cant say no.

It might just work ...

UK: We want everything
EU: You can only have X, Y, Z
UK: that's bad for you we want everything
EU: You have to accept X, Y Z or its a catastrophe for you while it only hurts us a lot
UK: everything is possible
EU: ? aren't you listening. Time is running out
UK: la la la la la
EU: Sacre bleu

Eh Juncker has an interest in painting it black. Take his word on things, lol.

I like Juncker and I want to see the level of alcohol consumption against his list

The EU has a bloody cheek trying to undermine democracy in NI by going on about reconciliation. None of their business.

I predict about shortly before the election, maybe in 3-4 weeks, they'll start making noises to indicate they're prepared to shoo in Scotland's entry if they leave the UK.

EU are playing dirty, but don't have the power to actually clearly survive the UK walking away without a deal. They might survive, but it's not at all certain.