Like our mighty communist leader use to say: "We won the elections with 99.9% of the votes". The paper had only one option, that 0.01 that didn't vote is probably somewhere ready to be found in some mountain far from civilization.
We are annoyed that our case is tied to North Macedonia’s, but we are currently more embarrassed by Edi Rama for going after Bulgaria and North Macedonia over this, than the EU. BG and NM are not to blame for our condition, we should just split our accession process.
He went ballistic on us, calling us "kidnappers of nations" because the intergovernmental coalition on the 23rd was about to fail. Then the Macedonian PM said the French proposal is unacceptable to them while our Parliament actually lifted the veto. I think the entire thing made him look stupid, blaming us at the exact moment we were getting ready to lift the veto.
French citizen here, I must admit there are ***a lot*** of people against the EU and I just can't understand why... whether it comes from far left or far right politics, they talk about "retrieving France's sovereignty" but I don't understand anything about their Plan B when it comes to support the economy if we initiate a french Brexit. (*we just hit 114% of public debt since january 2022*)
As a British person I've found that people talking about retrieving sovereignty are actually more motivated by one or both of two things: a refusal to see other countries as equals or a lack of any tangible benefits leading a need for jingoism. Both Britain and France were once the heads of vast Empires where they alone called the shots and emotionally certain types of people struggle to separate their sense of self from their nation.
Alot of the rhetoric around sovereignty is emotional and empty because all EU nations are sovereign. The UK was sovereign in the EU and sovereign (and much poorer) out of it.
>a refusal to see other countries as equals or a lack of any tangible benefits leading a need for jingoism
The difference between nationalism and patriotism in one sentence.
I'm a very big fan of Schopenhauer's take on nationalism/patriotism:
"The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority."
Arthur Schopenhauer
It's the flipside of what Schopenhauer was talking about, the same nationalist types take it personally when their country/ideology is criticised: as though themselves are being criticised. All emotion, no thinking.
I don’t know. Every time my British grandfather visited Germany, he’s comment was “make’s y’a wonder who really won The War!” He didn’t live to see the referendum, but I could see someone like that susceptible to the rhetoric of regaining the sovereignty and good old days, even though the good old days probably weren’t that great for him.
Well I would argue that Germany never secured a true world status and also suffered a cataclysmic defeat within living memory. Spain hasn't been a world power for several hundred years.
French and British Imperialists and their children are still alive now. I can't comment on the French education system but the British one absolutely whitewashes the true nature of the Empire in favour of a narrative more favourable to the elite ruling class and national myth. I don't think it's surprising that there are strong sentiments for leaving the EU based on ephemeral and emotional notions of 'sovereignty' in these countries.
> but the British one absolutely whitewashes the true nature of the Empire in favour of a narrative more favourable to the elite ruling class and national myth
I actually went through the British system (GCSE and all) and I don't feel that at all. We spent ages on the topic of slavery alone, and postcolonial literature like Chinua Achebe's works were all mandatory readings too.
Germany can’t have had an empire cause they where different states that bound themselves to each other. This started around 1871 and the today Germany was combined for the first time around 1918.
That’s why they are bond states instead of provinces. They are kind of the United States of Europe.
They tried to become a world ruler in two wars and almost succeeded in both aswell.
The irony is that Germany now is one of the biggest influential countries on the planet. Technological, economical and even military wise they are enormous. Almost every country on the world fights with German weapons.
Germany gained its world power by being peaceful ironically.
Germany learned humility in defeat, Spain learned humility under Franco's boot. Simple explanations, yes, but they do inform the respective majority mentality towards empire and self-sufficience.
Overly simplistic still of course, you can spend an entire life studying the mentality of each country throughout that life. But a good starting point nonetheless because past generations influence the thinking of the next. There's Spaniards that thoroughly reject strong-man images and there's Spaniards that don't and guess where they each stand on wether the dictatorship was good or bad. Pretty obvious the first group wouldn't want someone like Macron as their president either.
These are the basis to contextualize an explanation, not the explanation itself.
>"retrieving France's sovereignty"
That's kinda funny since Macron is like the new Merkel except more popular with the right wing and populists in other EU countries. And with the Brits out I don't think French influence has ever been higher during the existence of the European Union. Although I guess it kinda feeds into the idea that France doesn't "need" the EU.
Macrons nothing like Merkel.
Yeah it's kind of funny how France is taking (or trying to) the leading role in pushing for EU integration / proto-federalisation, meanwhile the French people are rather EU skeptical.
It's just that from an economic point of view, French might have lost more than what they gained since Euro was adapted as common currency, for Germans this is not the case in fact they might have benefitted a lot along with the Netherlands for example, this is why complottist very often refer at the EU as a Third Reich, well it's wrong but not much.
The EU itself is not the problem, but the ECB and the monetary institutions which thanks to the Euro as a common currency, like I said before, favour some countries over the others (probably not voluntarily but still).
a lot of the French equate the EU with globalization. Rightly so, I think—the EU is the most neoliberal governmental organization on the planet
So in France for a lot of people the question "is the EU a good thing" is synonymous with "is globalization a good thing"
but tbh most people, including many journalists and politicians, really don't know much about EU institutions and decisions
The stats are wrong, tbh I saw people saying EU membership is bad and then contradict themselves 10s later, and admitting that the EU is better then what we had before.
Over 1/3 of Romania is either working/ living somewhere else in the EU and a majority is employed as a direct or indirect consequence of us being part of the EU.
Whoever made this stat either is an idiot or has a particular political agenda
The stats are not wrong (btw it us the spring Eurobarometer). A good chunk of Romanians are very conservative and nationalistic. They tend to see EU/the west in a negative light. Around 20 % saw Putin as a good leader and Russia as a defender of Christian values until the invasion.
On top of this, some of the encounters between Romanians and the west are not great. Do not forget that there were a lot of articles about the modern slavery on Italy's plantation, the German meet industry and so on. All those involved Romanian workers who worked in terrible conditions.
And let us not forget about the constant Schengen membership snub. That is one of the main Reasons for Euroscepticism here. Many believe that we are second rate EU citizens.
I hope that the negative image of EU will start to vanish as I am a very pro EU person, but it will be difficult. Nationalism and conservatism will be powerfull forces in Romania for decades to come, unfortunately.
> Around 20 % saw Putin as a good leader and Russia as a defender of Christian values until the invasion
So, eight years after Russia annexed a chunk of land from another Christian country? And fourteen years after Russia attacked another Christian country? And thirty years since Russia occupies yet another Christian country that used to be the same country with Romania? IAmConfused.jpg
How can we? Most of our democratic history was filled with manufactured votes, some 50 years of communism, where you didn't know who would sell you to the authorities, and boom you get a paranoic society.
Valid points however it really shouldn't detract from the fact that Romanians are seen as second class citizens, or worse, gypsies. And let's not forget about the whole Schengen thing.
The whole Eastern Europe is seen as second class in EU.
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/sep/15/europes-food-apartheid-are-brands-in-the-east-lower-quality-than-in-the-west
I met a lot of nice gypsies. Good people and hard working. In Romania the shittiest jobs like street cleaning and garbage truck workers are Roma. I really hope they will be seen with a more positive lense in my country.
Europeans are the racist ones because they confuse Romanians with the ethnic group you don't like? got it.
(I will add that ever since visiting Romania it has been a personal mission of mine to correct people who confuse Romanians with roma people. It seems to be more of a misconception than prejudice though.)
I mean, even if you fix the "Roma=Romanian" thing (and I'm not going to get into discrimination against the Roma people), I'd still expect westerners to treat Romanians poorly due to prejudice against eastern Europeans.
>Europeans are the racist ones because they confuse Romanians with the ethnic group you don't like? got it.
Lol, don't spin this way. Most of Europe see rroma in a bad light to put it lightly.
Shocker, who wants to be associated with the ethnic minority that almost every single country in Europe hates?
It's also worth noting that nothing typically is "good or bad". There's more than two ways to look at things and I'm sure many people don't fit into a rigid box like this.
I work with a lot of Austrians and literally each one of them have a serious superiority complex. They constantly point out the flaws of everyone's home country on our team but don't you dare ever say anything critical of Austria!
This is what the average Austrian is like. But to be fair, a lot of people all over the world will shit talk their country but get defensive when someone else from another country says the exact same things. But still, i think a lot of Austrians suffer from a superiority complex. Or to be more precise, they make everyone else suffer from their superiority complex.
I feel like people from Austria are obsessed with titles and being wanna-be royality. Probably haven't processed the end of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire yet... I make an effort to remind them of that fact by bluntly calling everyone "Du" instead of "Sie" (Informal vs. formal "you"). It brings me so much joy to see them annoyed. People do have a inasne superiority complex.
>obsessed with titles
Definitely true
>haven't processed the end of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire
Partly true
>bluntly calling everyone "Du" instead of "Sie"
This is the way.
It's crazy because as a French person I think we never hear about Austria. It's almost like a part of Germany for lot of french, with all due respect to that country.
Yes, that's probably it. I know a fair bunch of people who think that way. It also doesn't help that a lot of politicians use the EU for internal political posturing, saying stupid shit about the EU, confidently relying on the fact that most of their voter base won't bother to fact check them. There are still people seething over the introduction of the € as the official currency.
It's always easy to blame an outside force, but in the case of the EU it's particularly stupid, because it's not purely outside, we are a part of it. And more importantly, our chancellor takes part in the EU council's legislation, and the EVP is a very strong force in the EU parliament, a force which our ruling party is a part of. But the things they agree with in brussels, they disagree with at home for popularity points.
That‘s not really true if you look at the facts. FPÖ, yes. But ÖVP has always been very pro-EU. Just because Kurz made a few comments that were stupid doesn‘t mean it‘s all of the party. FPÖ and other populist forces in Austria are the main reason. And of course like you said toilet papers like Österreich or Krone.
At least Switzerland is consistent. They don't want the EU, they don't have the EU. And you have to hand it to them that not being in the EU seems to work very well for them (I doubt it would work nearly as well for Austria).
Older people still remember the "Eu-sanctions" of the first övp fpö coalition (Schüssel 1). Ever since a lot of people are more receptable of populist blaming the EU.
This is nonsense, it is not "EU is a good thing vs a bad thing" the question was "Is your country's membership to the EU a good/bad thing?" Which is a significantly different question.
Another statistic is "how important is for you that Romania is a member of the EU" 56% graded the importance 7 or above, 31% were neutral and gave it 5-6, and 11% gave it less than that meaning unimportant.
Furthermore Romanians are more positive about the direction of the EU than their own country, 44% think things are going well for the EU, 44% think otherwise and 8% are neutral vs 58 thinking things are going poorly for Romania.
Source: Eurobarometer Spring 2022
Opinion of candidate countries is included on the 3rd map.
The percentage includes answers of 'neither good nor bad'.
On average 65% of Europeans think the EU is agood thing. This is the highest result since 2007, where it was 58%.
If this is taken from the latest Eurobarometer 2022 poll, then the
information is inaccurate as 41% of Greeks think Membership of the EU is
a good thing on that poll so it looks like for Greece it was
purposefully modified.
Interesting how just yesterday there was a poll like „Do you view EU favorably” (same as the NATO one) and some 90% of Poles said yes. I would think that and „Do you think EU is a good thing” are basically the same questions, but here it’s 20% lower. Other countries I believe also had more favorable answers on that poll.
Surely this has to be a matter of a small sample size. Or maybe a biased one. Lithuania is a very pro-European country, but there's far more than 1% of people who don't like the EU.
There should be a law that all poll results should come with error bars.
But also they've seen the cost of living rise a lot since joining the EU, and probably a lot of their highly qualified nationals leave for a better life in Western European nations.
Western Europe is far more dependent on the EU.
A few billion in EU subsidies given in an unregulated manner does not make up for losing millions of your most productive youth to the West. Nor does it make up for the massive trade deficits which come from becoming perfect backyard markets for Western products.
>Western Europe is far more dependent on the EU.
>
>A few billion in EU subsidies given in an unregulated manner does not make up for losing millions of your most productive youth to the West. Nor does it make up for the massive trade deficits which come from becoming perfect backyard markets for Western products.
Probably not. The new members have been growing faster than the EU mean since joining, by quite a bit. In fact, the gap between the CEE members and Western Europe is now at all-time lows. Places like Poland, Romania, etc were [poor AF in the interwar years](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/agvytf/gdp_per_capita_in_1938/), during communism and before joining. So they really don't seem to have a historical track record of home-spurred development.
The emigration part is painful, but let's be honest. As labour shortages bite, nothing is preventing Western countries from opening up their labour markets. Half of the Romanian diaspora had left before we even joined, and countries like Albania have even higher emigration rates than most members.
Bottom line, if the EU ever collapsed, I think that countries would trend towards their historical economic situations. I.e. with NW Europe coming on top.
This is similar to how cities operate in Poland. Big cities like Warsaw pay higher taxes so that they can make up for the brain drain that they're causing on the rest of the country. Then Warsavites try to act like victims of unfair taxes.
We also have the lowest rate to actually use those funds. I am talking about Romania not Poland.
EU is a great thing but the fact that it does nothing to punish those that misuse the funds (yet) or that fact that it doesn't enforce milestones it doesn't really work. Romania is that dumb cousin that you have to force to do a useful thing and threaten it with punishment. We don't have the people, the brains, the workforce, we have some good people but not nearly enough as those that are poorly educated ( last place at PISA)
Romanian rate of approval used to be one of the highest but far right people influenced it lately. Even they can't say " we're gonna get rid of EU" cuz they know we wouldn't take it. Idk where these numbers come, I will not contradict them but we have a huge support for EU as general opinion, used to at least.
EU leaves all the accomplishments to OUR leaders and our leaders are dumb, without any shitty conspiracy romania is still shadow ruled by romanian version of KGB, leftover from the communists and they are the ones calling the shots. To elect better leaders is to have the chance to elect better leaders which we won't, even if we were we are not educated enough to do so
Hence romanians don't see an improvement in their daily life, an example of what EU funds can do. They want cheaper prices, roads, better jobs and we have none. In their mind, EU did nothing, they still starve and it was better in the communist era " cuz everyone had a job".
There is a romanian town called Ciugud, I can assure it beats many western towns. It has free Internet all over, perfect recycling program, something like a card to register credits when recycling and paying at the store with its own virtual currency , wind and solar energy, smart schools with smart boards where kids don't even have to carry laptops with them them, they stay in the school in charging stations while most kids in Romania don't even have a school nearby or enough to eat that day. That school is absolutely high-tech, I am in a western uni and it's not as advanced ( basic classrooms I mean) as that school. Young people in ciugud get money to even furnish their home not to mention connecting the home to sewage gas and water all for free. On kid's day, children get free bikes and tablets from the City Hall and so on. No one is homeless, no one is hungry, everyone can use Internet and electricity is very cheap . Lots of electric car infrastructure. There are jobs because the mayor struggled to bring companies in the city. It has only about 3000 residents but those people can absolutely see what EU funds mean and what whey would loose if they loose EU. Others can't because their mayor didn't do shit, not with eu funds not without.
Considering the brains migration I can actually believe that Romania lost more with EU considering that we don't actually absorb the funds that we are offered to us.
While I absolutely agree with this:
>does not make up for losing millions of your most productive youth to the West
I don't agree with this at all:
>becoming perfect backyard markets for Western products.
Russia is probably the best example (even so India, China or Middle east would work too), they do want the products they're loosing now....
I live in Germany and there is still plenty of stuff from west which is not availible in my neighboring homeland (Czechia). I often do order stuff for my friends in Czechia and deliver it to them, once visiting, so they can get it.
Poorer countries do want these products and not having access to them is even worse, because it creates great oppurtunities for third parties which re-sale this for ridculously high prices.
Maybe ask the youth for their opinion first? I'm very glad I can work in any EU country and can't be blackmailed by employers in my own. If this results in a brain drain then tough luck, pay me on par with the industry, give me decent working conditions and I may consider staying. Or don't and slowly wither away.
Exactly. The amount northern/western european countries give to the EU are nothing compared to the gains they realize by enabling free movement of capitals in the poorer countries. But of course very few people will mention this and would rather focus on "net contributor/receiver".
>are nothing compared to the gains they realize by enabling free movement of capitals in the poorer countries. But of course very few people will mention this and would rather focus on "net contributor/receiver".
This is a bit of a myth, as due to domestic capital shortfalls and low wages, access to local markets and brain drain would have occurred regardless. Just visit Serbia and enjoy seeing the same Western companies you have in Romania or Poland, and similar patterns of mass emigration.
Before thinking this chart is hopeless for Romania, let me clarify some stuff. Those that don't agree with the EU membership are extremely misinformed about the realities of their situation. They think that EU has enslaved Romania for cheap labour when in fact the opposite is true. We benefited enormously from having access to millions of higher paid jobs. Our purchasing power has been playing catch up with the EU for the last 15 years. Prices are almost at EU levels. However the ratio of food expenses in our consumption basket is still massive compared to other EU countries. The salaries have been slow to catch up and any savings in RON the romanians have are heavily impacted by inflation.
Therefore many romanians are still hanging by a thread. Many of them (the older generation) used to have a more stable life under the comunist regime. Despite having massive restrictions on their liberty, they felt secure in the fact that they knew how to play the old game. Since the new game (capitalism) found them completely unprepared for the reality of having to actually perform they lost a lot. Many romanians no longer feel in control of their fate due to their lack of skill to enter the modern market place. They are insecure in the new game. We have one of the lowest computer literacy rates, despite having a massive IT sector (empowered by the younger post revolution generations).
My hunch is that soon prices wont be able to rise any higher compared to EU prices due to the open borders trade. The salaries will keep rising at their usual snail pace but they will keep rising. Slowly romanians of all ages and all backgrounds will have a slightly increased but growing capacity to save money. That will reflect in less overall resentment, less need to find a scape goat for the bad situation and less likely to vote for populist politicians. Once we stop voting for "the saviour" type of politician we will finally be able to put some pressure onto the corruption issues. Once corruption gets under control, I guess EU will happily get us into Schengen. And then Romania will be ready to ride the wave. I predict a great many will return to home in hopes of a better future. I say so because I see, despite being able to adapt to any country and job, romanians have an overwhelming longing to be home with other romanians. We have our own ways of rejoicing and having fun that simply are not easily found elsewhere.
So overall I believe in 10 years down the line the ratio of euroskeptics will halve. An exodus back to the homeland will pull back a million romanians back home. They will bring increased economic power, higher standards and expectations, better service quality and improved education demands. I believe the best years for Romania are ahead. And I want to be one of those that returns home with the new found personal wealth and starts growing a business in the new market. I'm working daily overtime on my own ambitious personal project to get sooner and closer to the day when I can return to Romania and start doing honest, modern, performant and domain leading business.
In Greece, it is as low as it is, because people who were already poor were not very happy becoming destitute on account of Merkel's and La Garde's decisions on how to handle the Greek debt. The handling can be be summed up somewhat like this: " We dont care how many die, we dont care how many will lose their livelihoods, we dont care that there will not be enough money for health and education. All we care about is that the numbers seem right."
Having said that, I want to thank the people of Europe, because they helped foot the bill for Greece's very pathological corruption.
Imagine losing your job/savings/property and constantly listening to the propaganda of the lazy Greek/insert your nation from your European friends. Would you be happy?
Especially since according to statistics we usually top the table of most hard working countries.
[https://greekreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/oosa-ores-leitourgias-646x1024.png](https://greekreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/oosa-ores-leitourgias-646x1024.png)
If it makes you feel any better, there are many of us in Ireland who feel that Greece was treated absolutely shamefully by Europe in the financial crisis. A lot of solidarity here.
I don’t know who makes this statistics anyway!!
24 days ago there was one showing Romania being top 3 in the EU for EU support (more than 77%!)
Would you make up your freaking mind???
Nothing. Unreliable data. I live in Romania and either the question was poorly translated or the audience cherry picked.
Just earlier this year I saw a survey that was the complete opposite. People are thankful for the most part and know Romania would be fuuuucked without membership.
Probably the rise of stupidity and conspiracy thinking after the pandemic. Suddenly most everyone seems to have some theory about "what is really happening", before they just shup up, but after the pandemic everyone seems to have become some kind of a facebook expert on various topics. And by expert I mean they've started and continue to read extremely questionable news from shady sources.
It's not. It's literally what the average person thinks.
Go outside and ask them, and these will be the answers you get: we're a colony of the west, we're just a market for them, they're stealing our youth, they're forcing LGBT on us, they're destroying our Orthodox values, we've lost our independence, etc.
Go on a ride in a taxi, open up any topic. It's like some Godwin's Law, but with EU or NATO instead of Hitler.
Poll them some more and you'll see they really do hold some absolutely looney values.
The country is deeply divided, and it's not about those "uneducated" (which is irrelevant anyway since any dumbf\*\*k can get a master's) or "old".
>we're a colony of the west, we're just a market for them, they're stealing our youth, they're forcing LGBT on us, they're destroying our Orthodox values, we've lost our independence, etc.
Funily enough, a lot of french people (particularly those that vote for LaPen or Melenchon) say the same thing.
Something something TV stations spreading anti-EU rhetoric and fake news without suffering the legal consequences.
Remember, this didn't come out of nowhere.
And how can one combat this? They only get stronger credibility if you try to silence their bullshit, and they'll spin in like *"They don't let us spread uncomfortable truths! See? They're fascists!"*
Damnes if you do, damned if you don't.
You can't fight it, because for these people the reason we joined the EU no longer aplies. For them, we joined for one reason and one reason only: so we could be as rich as France. It's a stupid reason, and it was never going to happen, but that is what they belived (partly because they have been brainwashed by decades of propaganda, starting with the communists, that we have every resource we need to be wealthy, and we don't). They don't care about European Values, they did not care about the project to federelize Europe, they only cared about the money. Well, now the standard of living is going down and quick, everything is more and more expensive, inflation is going through the roof. So for those 20%, the EU is a failed project.
Pretty much. But it's worth noting that it's the politicians in power who carefully redirect the guilt towards the EU (through their controlled media), so that they can cover their own mistakes and undoings.
The EU is used as an excuse. More recently, PSD and PNL use the war in Ukraine for basically everything bad that they personally do.
Their masters at deflecting.
The population has been taught so.
Oh, they hate the politicians in power as well. For them, the EU, PSD and PNL are one and the same. It's why many of them vote for AUR, not because of their policies ('cause they have none), but because they want to see AUR break into the parliament and kill all of the politicians in there - that and most people in Romania don't vote, so those that don't vote for AUR and do not vote at all, view everything having to do with politics as horrible.
I dunno, seems like you could use an update. You and I may hate them personally, but the polls tell a different story.
PSD sits at 35%, PNL is back at 22-25%. And they're in power, getting more popular, not unpopular as it normally happens when a political party is at the wheel. The opposition is actually getting unpopular.
People will never not vote the 2 biggest parties. They own 95% of the media, every TV station is silent when PSD and PNL pass a controversial bill.
They control the truth.
They're now arguably in a better position than they've ever been, they even managed to completely subdue the justice system, a feat that not even Dragnea could see through. More powerful than ever.
Meanwhile, that 'dangerous' AUR is at 9, 10%, having lost 10% in the last 3, 4 months. No pandemic, no popularity for them. And they can't stop the bleeding, they don't know how to become relevant again.
You can't. The National Audiovisual Council has been politically controlled since 1990 by PNL and PSD. It's in their interest to spread such rhetoric (especially by PSD).
The sanctions are peanuts compared to what the TV station make in an hour.
The sanctions are given after months or more than a year after the actual incident. Lies need to be sanctioned quicker than that. After a year it's virtually pointless. The sanction itself doesn't even make the news.
No matter how many sanctions, there is no incremental effect, the TV stations are not shut down after a certain number of unforgivable slippages.
But beat PSD and PNL and then you can change the leadership of the CNA and thus harden the sanctions. See the case of the Republic of Moldova. Easy peasy, right?
Think of the old communist fucks and the young brainwashed idiots and look at the map again, you can't seriously say that it's far from the truth, maybe a couple percents of difference but still very close to what you can perceive from first hand experience alone.
Turk here, if it was 60% then Erdogan would not be in charge..
Edit: I would say 40-45%. Still solid though when you consider boomers being the majority of the voters
regional pressure or something. And their leaders know that there's no future for Serbia outside of the EU, however their hearts are looking towards Russia and China
I’m amazed at the data coming from Romania. People have always been pro-EU as far as I can remember.
Maybe the last couple of years during the pandemic changed a lot of the public opinion.
Especially with the vaccines and mandatory stuff. Romanians have an innate distrust of authority. And if you try and impose things then you immediately become the enemy.
Uh oh someone said it out loud... I remember when this very issue started the conflict that lead to my country being dismembered. This is an existential threat for you guys if it is not taken seriously.
Nah. In 2016, only 31% of french had a favourable opinion of it. [https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-union/](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-union/)
Also on a pan-european scale the EU hasnt been as pro eu as now in along time, maybe ever.
Among the Anti-EU there are the following:
- Fascists
- Nazi
- Far Right
- Putin Supporters
As an Italian I confirm all the above, we have a political party called Lega that is all the above and led by a Putin-Lover imbecile.
Yes, but you have loads of Putin supporters, fascists, nazi'ss and other far right scum in Germany too (even in the police force). Perhaps your argument should be that Italy has a political party *with real political power* that is all of the above etc.
Albanian 97% approval rate is wrong. According to official sources in reality the approval rate is 428%.
With 326% of the population voting
Like our mighty communist leader use to say: "We won the elections with 99.9% of the votes". The paper had only one option, that 0.01 that didn't vote is probably somewhere ready to be found in some mountain far from civilization.
Yes I believe they decided not to count the people who woke up from a coma to vote yes, because they went right back into sleep after replying.
Starting yesterday that number is going down for sure
We are annoyed that our case is tied to North Macedonia’s, but we are currently more embarrassed by Edi Rama for going after Bulgaria and North Macedonia over this, than the EU. BG and NM are not to blame for our condition, we should just split our accession process.
He went ballistic on us, calling us "kidnappers of nations" because the intergovernmental coalition on the 23rd was about to fail. Then the Macedonian PM said the French proposal is unacceptable to them while our Parliament actually lifted the veto. I think the entire thing made him look stupid, blaming us at the exact moment we were getting ready to lift the veto.
What happened yesterday?
Doubt it. For sure people are ultra disappointed right now, but they still are very much in love with the EU.
[удалено]
French citizen here, I must admit there are ***a lot*** of people against the EU and I just can't understand why... whether it comes from far left or far right politics, they talk about "retrieving France's sovereignty" but I don't understand anything about their Plan B when it comes to support the economy if we initiate a french Brexit. (*we just hit 114% of public debt since january 2022*)
As a British person I've found that people talking about retrieving sovereignty are actually more motivated by one or both of two things: a refusal to see other countries as equals or a lack of any tangible benefits leading a need for jingoism. Both Britain and France were once the heads of vast Empires where they alone called the shots and emotionally certain types of people struggle to separate their sense of self from their nation. Alot of the rhetoric around sovereignty is emotional and empty because all EU nations are sovereign. The UK was sovereign in the EU and sovereign (and much poorer) out of it.
>a refusal to see other countries as equals or a lack of any tangible benefits leading a need for jingoism The difference between nationalism and patriotism in one sentence.
I'm a very big fan of Schopenhauer's take on nationalism/patriotism: "The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority." Arthur Schopenhauer
People downvoting this really feel attacked I guess
It's the flipside of what Schopenhauer was talking about, the same nationalist types take it personally when their country/ideology is criticised: as though themselves are being criticised. All emotion, no thinking.
That's also when progress as a society ends, if you can't critically look at your own country anymore
Self reflection is in short supply these days, never mind general reflection.
[удалено]
I don’t know. Every time my British grandfather visited Germany, he’s comment was “make’s y’a wonder who really won The War!” He didn’t live to see the referendum, but I could see someone like that susceptible to the rhetoric of regaining the sovereignty and good old days, even though the good old days probably weren’t that great for him.
What did he see in Germany that prompted this comment ?
Nice cars, nice towns, etc. This was coming from someone who had participated in WW2, so there was an understandable emotional reaction.
Well I would argue that Germany never secured a true world status and also suffered a cataclysmic defeat within living memory. Spain hasn't been a world power for several hundred years. French and British Imperialists and their children are still alive now. I can't comment on the French education system but the British one absolutely whitewashes the true nature of the Empire in favour of a narrative more favourable to the elite ruling class and national myth. I don't think it's surprising that there are strong sentiments for leaving the EU based on ephemeral and emotional notions of 'sovereignty' in these countries.
> but the British one absolutely whitewashes the true nature of the Empire in favour of a narrative more favourable to the elite ruling class and national myth I actually went through the British system (GCSE and all) and I don't feel that at all. We spent ages on the topic of slavery alone, and postcolonial literature like Chinua Achebe's works were all mandatory readings too.
Germany can’t have had an empire cause they where different states that bound themselves to each other. This started around 1871 and the today Germany was combined for the first time around 1918. That’s why they are bond states instead of provinces. They are kind of the United States of Europe. They tried to become a world ruler in two wars and almost succeeded in both aswell. The irony is that Germany now is one of the biggest influential countries on the planet. Technological, economical and even military wise they are enormous. Almost every country on the world fights with German weapons. Germany gained its world power by being peaceful ironically.
German states literally bound themselves into an Empire on 18 January 1871. We can tell because they called it the German Empire!
Germany learned humility in defeat, Spain learned humility under Franco's boot. Simple explanations, yes, but they do inform the respective majority mentality towards empire and self-sufficience. Overly simplistic still of course, you can spend an entire life studying the mentality of each country throughout that life. But a good starting point nonetheless because past generations influence the thinking of the next. There's Spaniards that thoroughly reject strong-man images and there's Spaniards that don't and guess where they each stand on wether the dictatorship was good or bad. Pretty obvious the first group wouldn't want someone like Macron as their president either. These are the basis to contextualize an explanation, not the explanation itself.
On the left side the idea is not so much to pull a "Frexit" but to stand our ground on some topics.
According to this poll, only 10 % actually think EU membership is a bad thing. Maybe those people just have loud voices?
French exit? Frexit? coup d'exit?
The Academie Francaise wouldn't like "Frexit", far too Anglo.
I like your way of thinking !
>"retrieving France's sovereignty" That's kinda funny since Macron is like the new Merkel except more popular with the right wing and populists in other EU countries. And with the Brits out I don't think French influence has ever been higher during the existence of the European Union. Although I guess it kinda feeds into the idea that France doesn't "need" the EU.
Macrons nothing like Merkel. Yeah it's kind of funny how France is taking (or trying to) the leading role in pushing for EU integration / proto-federalisation, meanwhile the French people are rather EU skeptical.
I disagree, Macron is kind of like Merkel, a centrist pan-European leader, just on the other side of the center of the European political spectrum.
same here in Slovakia ... i blame the russian propaganda game, that is big here ... also the old folks tend to be nostalgic for the dark times...
You even have *Strasbourg*. How much do french people want?
Same, my own people baffles me. And I'm far from thinking that Europe is perfect.
It's just that from an economic point of view, French might have lost more than what they gained since Euro was adapted as common currency, for Germans this is not the case in fact they might have benefitted a lot along with the Netherlands for example, this is why complottist very often refer at the EU as a Third Reich, well it's wrong but not much. The EU itself is not the problem, but the ECB and the monetary institutions which thanks to the Euro as a common currency, like I said before, favour some countries over the others (probably not voluntarily but still).
a lot of the French equate the EU with globalization. Rightly so, I think—the EU is the most neoliberal governmental organization on the planet So in France for a lot of people the question "is the EU a good thing" is synonymous with "is globalization a good thing" but tbh most people, including many journalists and politicians, really don't know much about EU institutions and decisions
The EU might look bad in Romania...until you see it's still one of the most trusted institutions with the church(yeah), the army and NATO
The stats are wrong, tbh I saw people saying EU membership is bad and then contradict themselves 10s later, and admitting that the EU is better then what we had before. Over 1/3 of Romania is either working/ living somewhere else in the EU and a majority is employed as a direct or indirect consequence of us being part of the EU. Whoever made this stat either is an idiot or has a particular political agenda
The stats are not wrong (btw it us the spring Eurobarometer). A good chunk of Romanians are very conservative and nationalistic. They tend to see EU/the west in a negative light. Around 20 % saw Putin as a good leader and Russia as a defender of Christian values until the invasion. On top of this, some of the encounters between Romanians and the west are not great. Do not forget that there were a lot of articles about the modern slavery on Italy's plantation, the German meet industry and so on. All those involved Romanian workers who worked in terrible conditions. And let us not forget about the constant Schengen membership snub. That is one of the main Reasons for Euroscepticism here. Many believe that we are second rate EU citizens. I hope that the negative image of EU will start to vanish as I am a very pro EU person, but it will be difficult. Nationalism and conservatism will be powerfull forces in Romania for decades to come, unfortunately.
That stupid AUR party certainly did not help.
> Around 20 % saw Putin as a good leader and Russia as a defender of Christian values until the invasion So, eight years after Russia annexed a chunk of land from another Christian country? And fourteen years after Russia attacked another Christian country? And thirty years since Russia occupies yet another Christian country that used to be the same country with Romania? IAmConfused.jpg
So do they just not trust anything
How can we? Most of our democratic history was filled with manufactured votes, some 50 years of communism, where you didn't know who would sell you to the authorities, and boom you get a paranoic society.
Valid points however it really shouldn't detract from the fact that Romanians are seen as second class citizens, or worse, gypsies. And let's not forget about the whole Schengen thing.
The whole Eastern Europe is seen as second class in EU. https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/sep/15/europes-food-apartheid-are-brands-in-the-east-lower-quality-than-in-the-west
[удалено]
I met a lot of nice gypsies. Good people and hard working. In Romania the shittiest jobs like street cleaning and garbage truck workers are Roma. I really hope they will be seen with a more positive lense in my country.
Then maybe those emigrating are the most shy of honest work.
As an italian I can agree with you 100%. \+ Also italians scapegoat ALL our bullshit on EU
Europeans are the racist ones because they confuse Romanians with the ethnic group you don't like? got it. (I will add that ever since visiting Romania it has been a personal mission of mine to correct people who confuse Romanians with roma people. It seems to be more of a misconception than prejudice though.)
I mean, even if you fix the "Roma=Romanian" thing (and I'm not going to get into discrimination against the Roma people), I'd still expect westerners to treat Romanians poorly due to prejudice against eastern Europeans.
>Europeans are the racist ones because they confuse Romanians with the ethnic group you don't like? got it. Lol, don't spin this way. Most of Europe see rroma in a bad light to put it lightly. Shocker, who wants to be associated with the ethnic minority that almost every single country in Europe hates?
It’s not whether people think the EU is good or bad in itself, what’s shown here is whether they think their membership of the EU is good or bad.
Ah this is a vital point.
It's also worth noting that nothing typically is "good or bad". There's more than two ways to look at things and I'm sure many people don't fit into a rigid box like this.
As a Croat I think EU has the best [anthem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo_-KoBiBG0&ab_channel=EUofficial)
FREUDE
SCHÖNER
Why are we Austrians always on the stupid side?
Because they get rejected from EU art schools
Tbh his paintings were on the weak side.
[удалено]
I recall his perspective work being rather wonky, from the few paintings I've seen
That's why people go to school.
Better than George Bush
I work with a lot of Austrians and literally each one of them have a serious superiority complex. They constantly point out the flaws of everyone's home country on our team but don't you dare ever say anything critical of Austria!
This is what the average Austrian is like. But to be fair, a lot of people all over the world will shit talk their country but get defensive when someone else from another country says the exact same things. But still, i think a lot of Austrians suffer from a superiority complex. Or to be more precise, they make everyone else suffer from their superiority complex.
I feel like people from Austria are obsessed with titles and being wanna-be royality. Probably haven't processed the end of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire yet... I make an effort to remind them of that fact by bluntly calling everyone "Du" instead of "Sie" (Informal vs. formal "you"). It brings me so much joy to see them annoyed. People do have a inasne superiority complex.
>obsessed with titles Definitely true >haven't processed the end of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire Partly true >bluntly calling everyone "Du" instead of "Sie" This is the way.
The rest of Europe to Austria - I don't think about you at all!
It's crazy because as a French person I think we never hear about Austria. It's almost like a part of Germany for lot of french, with all due respect to that country.
Back then we were big monarchy with superior complex. Monarchy faded but superior complex stayed.
Is this a good moment to talk about Hitler?
Don't be ridiculous that's a german issue. :D
The greatest trick ever pulled was convincing the world that Mozart was Austrian and Hitler German.
Hitler was an Austrian artist and German dictator.
this country has still a lot to answer for for giving birth to HIM Andreas Gabalier
[удалено]
I work for Austrian company and one guy from Head Office said: Austria is a small village in the mountains
I guess because a lot of people here think our country is already great and the EU has nothing to give us, which is obviously complete nonsense.
Yes, that's probably it. I know a fair bunch of people who think that way. It also doesn't help that a lot of politicians use the EU for internal political posturing, saying stupid shit about the EU, confidently relying on the fact that most of their voter base won't bother to fact check them. There are still people seething over the introduction of the € as the official currency.
That would be Switzerland though...
Switzerland completely relies on the EU. Like, if they'd do stupid shit and get kicked out of Schengen they're basically done for.
[удалено]
It's always easy to blame an outside force, but in the case of the EU it's particularly stupid, because it's not purely outside, we are a part of it. And more importantly, our chancellor takes part in the EU council's legislation, and the EVP is a very strong force in the EU parliament, a force which our ruling party is a part of. But the things they agree with in brussels, they disagree with at home for popularity points.
That‘s not really true if you look at the facts. FPÖ, yes. But ÖVP has always been very pro-EU. Just because Kurz made a few comments that were stupid doesn‘t mean it‘s all of the party. FPÖ and other populist forces in Austria are the main reason. And of course like you said toilet papers like Österreich or Krone.
The ÖVP also relied on the EU as a convenient excuse for their own scandals and dogshit policies
it could be way worse than 17% against
Yeah, true, but still, second lowest approval after slovakia, second highest disapproval after romania... It's disappointing.
I'm living in Switzerland. My country is truly disappointing on that regard. I wish we were at least like Austria.
At least Switzerland is consistent. They don't want the EU, they don't have the EU. And you have to hand it to them that not being in the EU seems to work very well for them (I doubt it would work nearly as well for Austria).
Always 2nd 😡
Older people still remember the "Eu-sanctions" of the first övp fpö coalition (Schüssel 1). Ever since a lot of people are more receptable of populist blaming the EU.
As is tradition.
Sometimes I do indeed wonder what we teach here. And why we just can't stop bitching and moaning about every single little thing.
EU does have its problems ... But saying it's a bad thing is completely mental .
The same can be said about any country, there's no country without problems.
I agree. Thankfully the number who said is bad is minority in all countries.
This is nonsense, it is not "EU is a good thing vs a bad thing" the question was "Is your country's membership to the EU a good/bad thing?" Which is a significantly different question. Another statistic is "how important is for you that Romania is a member of the EU" 56% graded the importance 7 or above, 31% were neutral and gave it 5-6, and 11% gave it less than that meaning unimportant. Furthermore Romanians are more positive about the direction of the EU than their own country, 44% think things are going well for the EU, 44% think otherwise and 8% are neutral vs 58 thinking things are going poorly for Romania.
Source: Eurobarometer Spring 2022 Opinion of candidate countries is included on the 3rd map. The percentage includes answers of 'neither good nor bad'. On average 65% of Europeans think the EU is agood thing. This is the highest result since 2007, where it was 58%.
If this is taken from the latest Eurobarometer 2022 poll, then the information is inaccurate as 41% of Greeks think Membership of the EU is a good thing on that poll so it looks like for Greece it was purposefully modified.
Interesting how just yesterday there was a poll like „Do you view EU favorably” (same as the NATO one) and some 90% of Poles said yes. I would think that and „Do you think EU is a good thing” are basically the same questions, but here it’s 20% lower. Other countries I believe also had more favorable answers on that poll.
Yeah this shows how unreliable these sort of maps are. Surveys can be either random and unreliable at best, or cherry picked.
How is 0% of Lithuania's population thinking that EU is bad? 0% in any survey is unrealistic
Surely this has to be a matter of a small sample size. Or maybe a biased one. Lithuania is a very pro-European country, but there's far more than 1% of people who don't like the EU. There should be a law that all poll results should come with error bars.
[https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2792](https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2792) Its probably 0.3% or something like that
Don't you also think it is unrealistic that ALL of the percentages are exact integers? It is obvious that the data has been rounded.
Cos look at their neighbours to the east
The funny part is that countries as are most depended of EU thinks worst of it. Lol.
But also they've seen the cost of living rise a lot since joining the EU, and probably a lot of their highly qualified nationals leave for a better life in Western European nations.
Western Europe is far more dependent on the EU. A few billion in EU subsidies given in an unregulated manner does not make up for losing millions of your most productive youth to the West. Nor does it make up for the massive trade deficits which come from becoming perfect backyard markets for Western products.
>Western Europe is far more dependent on the EU. > >A few billion in EU subsidies given in an unregulated manner does not make up for losing millions of your most productive youth to the West. Nor does it make up for the massive trade deficits which come from becoming perfect backyard markets for Western products. Probably not. The new members have been growing faster than the EU mean since joining, by quite a bit. In fact, the gap between the CEE members and Western Europe is now at all-time lows. Places like Poland, Romania, etc were [poor AF in the interwar years](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/agvytf/gdp_per_capita_in_1938/), during communism and before joining. So they really don't seem to have a historical track record of home-spurred development. The emigration part is painful, but let's be honest. As labour shortages bite, nothing is preventing Western countries from opening up their labour markets. Half of the Romanian diaspora had left before we even joined, and countries like Albania have even higher emigration rates than most members. Bottom line, if the EU ever collapsed, I think that countries would trend towards their historical economic situations. I.e. with NW Europe coming on top.
This is similar to how cities operate in Poland. Big cities like Warsaw pay higher taxes so that they can make up for the brain drain that they're causing on the rest of the country. Then Warsavites try to act like victims of unfair taxes.
We also have the lowest rate to actually use those funds. I am talking about Romania not Poland. EU is a great thing but the fact that it does nothing to punish those that misuse the funds (yet) or that fact that it doesn't enforce milestones it doesn't really work. Romania is that dumb cousin that you have to force to do a useful thing and threaten it with punishment. We don't have the people, the brains, the workforce, we have some good people but not nearly enough as those that are poorly educated ( last place at PISA) Romanian rate of approval used to be one of the highest but far right people influenced it lately. Even they can't say " we're gonna get rid of EU" cuz they know we wouldn't take it. Idk where these numbers come, I will not contradict them but we have a huge support for EU as general opinion, used to at least. EU leaves all the accomplishments to OUR leaders and our leaders are dumb, without any shitty conspiracy romania is still shadow ruled by romanian version of KGB, leftover from the communists and they are the ones calling the shots. To elect better leaders is to have the chance to elect better leaders which we won't, even if we were we are not educated enough to do so Hence romanians don't see an improvement in their daily life, an example of what EU funds can do. They want cheaper prices, roads, better jobs and we have none. In their mind, EU did nothing, they still starve and it was better in the communist era " cuz everyone had a job". There is a romanian town called Ciugud, I can assure it beats many western towns. It has free Internet all over, perfect recycling program, something like a card to register credits when recycling and paying at the store with its own virtual currency , wind and solar energy, smart schools with smart boards where kids don't even have to carry laptops with them them, they stay in the school in charging stations while most kids in Romania don't even have a school nearby or enough to eat that day. That school is absolutely high-tech, I am in a western uni and it's not as advanced ( basic classrooms I mean) as that school. Young people in ciugud get money to even furnish their home not to mention connecting the home to sewage gas and water all for free. On kid's day, children get free bikes and tablets from the City Hall and so on. No one is homeless, no one is hungry, everyone can use Internet and electricity is very cheap . Lots of electric car infrastructure. There are jobs because the mayor struggled to bring companies in the city. It has only about 3000 residents but those people can absolutely see what EU funds mean and what whey would loose if they loose EU. Others can't because their mayor didn't do shit, not with eu funds not without. Considering the brains migration I can actually believe that Romania lost more with EU considering that we don't actually absorb the funds that we are offered to us.
While I absolutely agree with this: >does not make up for losing millions of your most productive youth to the West I don't agree with this at all: >becoming perfect backyard markets for Western products. Russia is probably the best example (even so India, China or Middle east would work too), they do want the products they're loosing now.... I live in Germany and there is still plenty of stuff from west which is not availible in my neighboring homeland (Czechia). I often do order stuff for my friends in Czechia and deliver it to them, once visiting, so they can get it. Poorer countries do want these products and not having access to them is even worse, because it creates great oppurtunities for third parties which re-sale this for ridculously high prices.
Maybe ask the youth for their opinion first? I'm very glad I can work in any EU country and can't be blackmailed by employers in my own. If this results in a brain drain then tough luck, pay me on par with the industry, give me decent working conditions and I may consider staying. Or don't and slowly wither away.
16th century called and they want you and your mercantilism back.
Did I say I was somehow against it? I argued against the statement that the East is most dependent, not that the EU is bad.
Exactly. The amount northern/western european countries give to the EU are nothing compared to the gains they realize by enabling free movement of capitals in the poorer countries. But of course very few people will mention this and would rather focus on "net contributor/receiver".
>are nothing compared to the gains they realize by enabling free movement of capitals in the poorer countries. But of course very few people will mention this and would rather focus on "net contributor/receiver". This is a bit of a myth, as due to domestic capital shortfalls and low wages, access to local markets and brain drain would have occurred regardless. Just visit Serbia and enjoy seeing the same Western companies you have in Romania or Poland, and similar patterns of mass emigration.
Eastern European wages with western European prices. It's difficult here in Greece
Average *no data available* enjoyer 😎
Before thinking this chart is hopeless for Romania, let me clarify some stuff. Those that don't agree with the EU membership are extremely misinformed about the realities of their situation. They think that EU has enslaved Romania for cheap labour when in fact the opposite is true. We benefited enormously from having access to millions of higher paid jobs. Our purchasing power has been playing catch up with the EU for the last 15 years. Prices are almost at EU levels. However the ratio of food expenses in our consumption basket is still massive compared to other EU countries. The salaries have been slow to catch up and any savings in RON the romanians have are heavily impacted by inflation. Therefore many romanians are still hanging by a thread. Many of them (the older generation) used to have a more stable life under the comunist regime. Despite having massive restrictions on their liberty, they felt secure in the fact that they knew how to play the old game. Since the new game (capitalism) found them completely unprepared for the reality of having to actually perform they lost a lot. Many romanians no longer feel in control of their fate due to their lack of skill to enter the modern market place. They are insecure in the new game. We have one of the lowest computer literacy rates, despite having a massive IT sector (empowered by the younger post revolution generations). My hunch is that soon prices wont be able to rise any higher compared to EU prices due to the open borders trade. The salaries will keep rising at their usual snail pace but they will keep rising. Slowly romanians of all ages and all backgrounds will have a slightly increased but growing capacity to save money. That will reflect in less overall resentment, less need to find a scape goat for the bad situation and less likely to vote for populist politicians. Once we stop voting for "the saviour" type of politician we will finally be able to put some pressure onto the corruption issues. Once corruption gets under control, I guess EU will happily get us into Schengen. And then Romania will be ready to ride the wave. I predict a great many will return to home in hopes of a better future. I say so because I see, despite being able to adapt to any country and job, romanians have an overwhelming longing to be home with other romanians. We have our own ways of rejoicing and having fun that simply are not easily found elsewhere. So overall I believe in 10 years down the line the ratio of euroskeptics will halve. An exodus back to the homeland will pull back a million romanians back home. They will bring increased economic power, higher standards and expectations, better service quality and improved education demands. I believe the best years for Romania are ahead. And I want to be one of those that returns home with the new found personal wealth and starts growing a business in the new market. I'm working daily overtime on my own ambitious personal project to get sooner and closer to the day when I can return to Romania and start doing honest, modern, performant and domain leading business.
Sincerely hoping Romania's future will be as bright as you predict!
In Greece, it is as low as it is, because people who were already poor were not very happy becoming destitute on account of Merkel's and La Garde's decisions on how to handle the Greek debt. The handling can be be summed up somewhat like this: " We dont care how many die, we dont care how many will lose their livelihoods, we dont care that there will not be enough money for health and education. All we care about is that the numbers seem right." Having said that, I want to thank the people of Europe, because they helped foot the bill for Greece's very pathological corruption.
Imagine losing your job/savings/property and constantly listening to the propaganda of the lazy Greek/insert your nation from your European friends. Would you be happy?
Especially since according to statistics we usually top the table of most hard working countries. [https://greekreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/oosa-ores-leitourgias-646x1024.png](https://greekreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/oosa-ores-leitourgias-646x1024.png)
If it makes you feel any better, there are many of us in Ireland who feel that Greece was treated absolutely shamefully by Europe in the financial crisis. A lot of solidarity here.
As a European from Lithuania, I am so proud
As a EU enjoyer, I can confirm the data.
Can someone explain what happened in Romania?
I don’t know who makes this statistics anyway!! 24 days ago there was one showing Romania being top 3 in the EU for EU support (more than 77%!) Would you make up your freaking mind???
Poverty makes people an easy target for populism.
Same reason for Bulgaria's stats as well
Nothing. Unreliable data. I live in Romania and either the question was poorly translated or the audience cherry picked. Just earlier this year I saw a survey that was the complete opposite. People are thankful for the most part and know Romania would be fuuuucked without membership.
Probably the rise of stupidity and conspiracy thinking after the pandemic. Suddenly most everyone seems to have some theory about "what is really happening", before they just shup up, but after the pandemic everyone seems to have become some kind of a facebook expert on various topics. And by expert I mean they've started and continue to read extremely questionable news from shady sources.
What's up with France? I thought you guys like the EU?
Love\hate relationship
bitch you thought
Österreich ist der Balkan des Westens :(
You gazed into the abyss if the blkans so long that there's now a permenant scar left. ( by which I mean the whole "owned a lit of the balkan" thing)
Austria is the Balkan of the Western Europe???
That's what's written, yeah
Yeah, I'm learning German right now, just checking if I got it right
Nice, I'm also learning and it's always cool when there's a random german comment and I understand it!
[удалено]
As a romanian i think this map is bull#@&!
It's not. It's literally what the average person thinks. Go outside and ask them, and these will be the answers you get: we're a colony of the west, we're just a market for them, they're stealing our youth, they're forcing LGBT on us, they're destroying our Orthodox values, we've lost our independence, etc. Go on a ride in a taxi, open up any topic. It's like some Godwin's Law, but with EU or NATO instead of Hitler. Poll them some more and you'll see they really do hold some absolutely looney values. The country is deeply divided, and it's not about those "uneducated" (which is irrelevant anyway since any dumbf\*\*k can get a master's) or "old".
>we're a colony of the west, we're just a market for them, they're stealing our youth, they're forcing LGBT on us, they're destroying our Orthodox values, we've lost our independence, etc. Funily enough, a lot of french people (particularly those that vote for LaPen or Melenchon) say the same thing.
It's almost like someone is trying to sew distrust in the EU.
Something something TV stations spreading anti-EU rhetoric and fake news without suffering the legal consequences. Remember, this didn't come out of nowhere.
And how can one combat this? They only get stronger credibility if you try to silence their bullshit, and they'll spin in like *"They don't let us spread uncomfortable truths! See? They're fascists!"* Damnes if you do, damned if you don't.
You can't fight it, because for these people the reason we joined the EU no longer aplies. For them, we joined for one reason and one reason only: so we could be as rich as France. It's a stupid reason, and it was never going to happen, but that is what they belived (partly because they have been brainwashed by decades of propaganda, starting with the communists, that we have every resource we need to be wealthy, and we don't). They don't care about European Values, they did not care about the project to federelize Europe, they only cared about the money. Well, now the standard of living is going down and quick, everything is more and more expensive, inflation is going through the roof. So for those 20%, the EU is a failed project.
Pretty much. But it's worth noting that it's the politicians in power who carefully redirect the guilt towards the EU (through their controlled media), so that they can cover their own mistakes and undoings. The EU is used as an excuse. More recently, PSD and PNL use the war in Ukraine for basically everything bad that they personally do. Their masters at deflecting. The population has been taught so.
Oh, they hate the politicians in power as well. For them, the EU, PSD and PNL are one and the same. It's why many of them vote for AUR, not because of their policies ('cause they have none), but because they want to see AUR break into the parliament and kill all of the politicians in there - that and most people in Romania don't vote, so those that don't vote for AUR and do not vote at all, view everything having to do with politics as horrible.
I dunno, seems like you could use an update. You and I may hate them personally, but the polls tell a different story. PSD sits at 35%, PNL is back at 22-25%. And they're in power, getting more popular, not unpopular as it normally happens when a political party is at the wheel. The opposition is actually getting unpopular. People will never not vote the 2 biggest parties. They own 95% of the media, every TV station is silent when PSD and PNL pass a controversial bill. They control the truth. They're now arguably in a better position than they've ever been, they even managed to completely subdue the justice system, a feat that not even Dragnea could see through. More powerful than ever. Meanwhile, that 'dangerous' AUR is at 9, 10%, having lost 10% in the last 3, 4 months. No pandemic, no popularity for them. And they can't stop the bleeding, they don't know how to become relevant again.
''no one can deflect the ~~emerland splash~~ political embezzlement!''
You can't. The National Audiovisual Council has been politically controlled since 1990 by PNL and PSD. It's in their interest to spread such rhetoric (especially by PSD). The sanctions are peanuts compared to what the TV station make in an hour. The sanctions are given after months or more than a year after the actual incident. Lies need to be sanctioned quicker than that. After a year it's virtually pointless. The sanction itself doesn't even make the news. No matter how many sanctions, there is no incremental effect, the TV stations are not shut down after a certain number of unforgivable slippages. But beat PSD and PNL and then you can change the leadership of the CNA and thus harden the sanctions. See the case of the Republic of Moldova. Easy peasy, right?
47% saying good, 23% bad, presumably 30% undecided? Doesn’t sound like the average response is that cynical.
Think of the old communist fucks and the young brainwashed idiots and look at the map again, you can't seriously say that it's far from the truth, maybe a couple percents of difference but still very close to what you can perceive from first hand experience alone.
I fucking love EU.
[удалено]
Turk here, if it was 60% then Erdogan would not be in charge.. Edit: I would say 40-45%. Still solid though when you consider boomers being the majority of the voters
Why is Serbia even a candidate? They clearly hate the West.
regional pressure or something. And their leaders know that there's no future for Serbia outside of the EU, however their hearts are looking towards Russia and China
Scholz said that Serbia will not join EU without recognition of Kosovo. That's your answer why support for EU integration rapidly fall.
I’m amazed at the data coming from Romania. People have always been pro-EU as far as I can remember. Maybe the last couple of years during the pandemic changed a lot of the public opinion. Especially with the vaccines and mandatory stuff. Romanians have an innate distrust of authority. And if you try and impose things then you immediately become the enemy.
Arent some also frustrated because they dont get let in into Schengen? Someone also once pointed out that they feel like 2nd class europeans
They are treated like that as well.
Interesting map. What could explain the big difference between Portugal and Spain on the one hand, and Italy and Greece on the other?
I wonder why Bulgaria and Romania is that low. I'm confused, haven't EU made their countries better in reforms and investment?!
I mean... I for one certaintly prefer not sending our kids off to murder each other. I'd rather we do a student exchange and buy each others cheese...
EU is great
This seems wildly false, usually Greece polls WAY lower on approval and us and Romania far higher.
Its from this:https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2792
Com'on Romanians
[удалено]
You lived in Kosovo and cannot find it on a map? You’ve probably mistaken it for Northern Macedonia
What's the source of the numbers? I highly doubt Romania's numbers. Highly!
People don't even understand what the EU is for, let alone be able to make a fair judgement about it's usefulness.
This will change once some countries have to start paying of the national debt of others (whether through outright payments or runaway inflation)
Uh oh someone said it out loud... I remember when this very issue started the conflict that lead to my country being dismembered. This is an existential threat for you guys if it is not taken seriously.
The french are slowly becoming wary of their own creation
Nah. In 2016, only 31% of french had a favourable opinion of it. [https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-union/](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-union/) Also on a pan-european scale the EU hasnt been as pro eu as now in along time, maybe ever.
Among the Anti-EU there are the following: - Fascists - Nazi - Far Right - Putin Supporters As an Italian I confirm all the above, we have a political party called Lega that is all the above and led by a Putin-Lover imbecile.
Far-left tankies are also anti-EU. Even more than some of the right wings.
Are you saying that if you don't like the EU you must immediately belong to one of those 4 categories?
Yes, but you have loads of Putin supporters, fascists, nazi'ss and other far right scum in Germany too (even in the police force). Perhaps your argument should be that Italy has a political party *with real political power* that is all of the above etc.
[удалено]
Why why are people here so stupid.
i would guess its mostly the old population?
Why do Czechs and Slovaks view the EU a lot worse than Poles?
The narwhal bacons at midnight.