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Originally Posted by mucknuts
I mean can someone break down why exactly? I've never figured this out.
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...
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I am personally convinced that one of the main reasons for Brexit was the free movement policy, and that it's also the reason why Geert Wilders gained traction in Netherlands, why Le Pen has made the runoff, and why AfD is growing in Germany. If free movement is a concept that is unpopular and could cause the collapse of the EU, why can't it be shelved or reformed?
... 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.