dagmaraka wrote:but nimh, that's exactly what they were worried about when it came to eastern europe. that's why freedom of movement has not yet been extended to the ten new countries, save for a few exceptions. but people didn't get up and leave en masse after we joined EU. likewise it won't happen with turkey. it's not that easy to just uproot and move half across the continent, even if it's possible on paper. i think it's an exaggerated fear.
This turns out to not be true: they
did uproot en masse - to the three EU countries that do allow them in freely:
Quote: East Europeans Crowd Through Britain's Wide-Open Door
The New York Times
By THOMAS FULLER
Published: October 23, 2005
LONDON - Nearly a year and a half after the expansion of the European Union, waves of East Europeans have washed into Britain.
They work as bus drivers, [..] waitresses, builders and saleswomen; they are transforming parts of London into Slavic and Baltic enclaves where pickles and Polish beer are stacked in delicatessens and Polish can be heard on the streets almost as often as English.
Despite fears across Europe that low-cost workers would steal jobs, multicultural Britain has absorbed these workers with hardly a ripple. Unemployment is still low at 4.7 percent [..]. Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians and other Easterners are arriving at an average rate of 16,000 a month, a result of Britain's decision to allow unlimited access to the citizens of the eight East European countries that joined the European Union last year.
Since May 2004, more than 230,000 East Europeans have registered to work in Britain, many more than the government expected. [..]
"They are coming in and making a very good reputation as highly skilled, highly motivated workers," said Christopher Thompson, a diplomat at the British Embassy in Warsaw. "The U.K. is pleased with the way it's progressed over the first 16 months [..]."
Tens of thousands of East Europeans have also moved to Ireland and Sweden, the only other West European countries that opened their labor markets to the new European Union members.
With nearly full employment, Ireland's booming economy still needs workers, and immigration is encouraged. More than 128,000 East Europeans from the new European Union member states registered to work in Ireland from May 2004 to August 2005.
Irish society seems to be adjusting to the newcomers, [..] a newspaper in Limerick now runs a column in Polish [..].
The phenomenon is more subdued in Sweden, where about 16,000 workers from the new European Union countries registered with the authorities from May 2004 to early October this year. A substantial majority, about two-thirds, were Poles, followed by Lithuanians and Estonians.
Other West European countries threw up barriers that will be lowered only gradually over the next decade. A Pole seeking to work in France, for example, still needs to apply for a work permit. France issued 737 such permits to Poles in the 10 months after the European Union expansion; that is the number of Poles who arrive every two days in Britain, where they need no special permission, but just travel on their passport or identity card. [..]
There is some ambivalence in Britain about the arrival of the East Europeans. Some of the loudest complaints have come from the older generation of Poles, who moved to Britain during World War II and now complain about the brusque manners of the newcomers.
Britons working in manual trades say the newcomers are pushing wages down.
Jim Flanagin, a 48-year-old bricklayer, said East Europeans worked for about a quarter less than the $210 a bricklayer earned daily. [..] But he quickly added that East Europeans were good workers whose presence had not brought tensions.
[..] Ryszard Wolski, who runs a company that imports Polish food, said demand had increased so sharply he was leaving his current warehouse for one five times as big. He distributes 26,400 cans and bottles of Polish beer a week.
The migration has been so sudden that many institutions are having trouble expanding fast enough. Roman Catholic worshipers at the 12 Polish-language parishes in the London area are standing in the aisles and vestibules of overflowing churches at Mass on weekends. [..]
Edited that article for brevity, see the [..] bits; click the title for full text.
It's a very cheery, almost festive article, celebrating the added layer of multiethnic diversity in an infectious way. The question is how a country with much higher unemployment would have dealt with a similar influx.
The British example perhaps shows exactly that immigration, and by extension the inclusion of countries like Turkey, can indeed be absorbed - if you're ready to downgrade your social system to the rather American style of Britain after Thatcher and Blair. I don't think I am, for one.
well, exactly how they did deal. would not open its borders to full freedom of movement. countries like uk and irelan, that are in need of workers, extended these freedoms and are doing better for that.
workers go after they get permits - they don't invade countries wildly. sure, they push wages down at the moment, but that, too, will not last. i think the whole 'polish plumber' scare is way exaggerated.
dagmaraka wrote:well, exactly how they did deal. would not open its borders to full freedom of movement. countries like uk and irelan, that are in need of workers, extended these freedoms and are doing better for that.
workers go after they get permits - they don't invade countries wildly. sure, they push wages down at the moment, but that, too, will not last. i think the whole 'polish plumber' scare is way exaggerated.
On the basis of what do you think it's exaggerated?
The premise of the scare was that:
1) East-European workers would move en masse to Western Europe if allowed
2) Once they did so, they would push wages down.
I dismissed that fear, myself, because I didn't believe 1) would happen. But it turns out that it did, though. Apparently, both 1) and 2) are true.
That leaves only, like you say, blocking labour access altogether as alternative. But we already agreed (I think) that can not be a long-term alternative: you can't welcome new countries into the EU but then indefinitely block them from its core values/benefits.
Moreover, re: the point of "exaggerated fears", the fact that
blocking labour immigration worked to stop cheap labour coming in to, say, France, doesn't prove that the prospect of such an influx was an exaggeration in the first place. If anything, it proves the very opposite, namely that it had indeed to be blocked.
I mean, I can see looking at these numbers and saying: "well, it's working for them, right? And the countries for whom it wouldn't work just have to block their borders." That's kinda what the article says. But I don't understand how you look at these numbers and still say, "well the whole thing was way exaggerated anyway" (it wasnt going to happen, people arent going to move en masse and uproot, etc). Cause that's exactly what they're doing, apparently.
i dunno, to me it doesn't seem like an exorbitant number, that's all. how many people are in the ten accessing countries? few hundred thousand moved for work - that really isn't that much. wages will go up again, eventually anyway, or the 'polish plumbers' will be replaced by others. it's far from a permanent situation.
i guess we just don't see 'en masse' the same way. shrug.
I guess we just have different affinities, kinda, which is logical considering our different backgrounds. I mean, I can well imagine why you'd shrug about a temporary regression of labour wages in countries where bricklayers earn x times as much as the average wage in your country anyway.
I must say I was kinda taken aback by how much that bricklayer earned myself, as well - damn! Thats like, twice as much as I earn. I think that's perfectly fair - he does heavy labour work that leaves him worn out by 50; compare that to my dabbling behind a computer. But it does kind of relativate the threat to the working class thing.
Then again, that may be true for bricklayers, but definitely not for people who work in warehouses, or as cleaners, not in Holland in any case. And the trend in wages and employee rights is definitely downward there, too - it is and has been downward already, even without East Europeans coming in.
In that sense I think that to say, oh, "wages will go up again, anyway", is kind of a luxury perspective. Yeah, those of academics and web editors like you and me perhaps (and bricklayers, apparently). But people in the bottom 10% or 20% income brackets have already only seen their purchasing powers decrease for 25 years now, with a brief exception in the mid/late nineties. And they are the ones most vulnerable to the competition of newcomers who are willing to work for even less still.
I think you have more of an individualist, liberal outlook. But for me, the survival of the social-democratic welfare state model is a question of the heart. Not just to protect the eroding purchasing power and employee rights of warehouse workers at this moment, but also to safeguard the continuing existence of an alternative socio-economic model to that of the US; a model that will then still be there to adopt by countries further east or south once the prospect comes within reach, as well. My parents, my mother, fought for it, and I'm not ready to give it away in a generous gesture of cosmopolitan world citizenship.
To make it more concrete, this is an example of the challenges involved I think: how affording the freedom that EU membership brings to new member states clashes with, or even threatens, long-established socio-economic arrangements of the national welfare state. (This is exactly why some leftists opposed the EU from the start).
Very curious what the European Court will say about it.
(translated from the Sueddeutsche Zeitung of today)
Quote:Signs of the Times
Cheap wages of a Latvian construction firm in Sweden spur European Parliament struggle over the social future of Europe
Two days before the heads of state and government retreat [..] to the diplomatic discretion of their social summit, the struggle over the economic and social future of the EU has flamed up openly - [..] on the stage of the European Parliament [..]. Focus of the fierce fight of words is once again the [..] Interior market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy.
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso should "immediately brake" the conservative Irishman, the chief of the European socialists, Martin Schulz, warned. For McCreevy the goal of a unified inner market apparently will only then be achieved, "when everywhere the lowest standards and the cheapest wages will be implemented". A fierce response came from the chairs of the Christian-Democrats and Liberals, Hans-Gert Poettering and Graham Watson. Parliamentarians like Schulz live "in the past", they opine. The European left has not recognized the "signs of the times".
Cause of the mutual polemics is a judicial fight, which started on a construction site in distant Sweden. The Latvian firm Laval un Partneri had, last autumn, won the tender for the construction of a school in the Swedish town of Vaxholm. It used Latvian construction workers for the job. It paid them twice as high an hourly wage as that in Latvia. But the rates were still far below Swedish wages.
In Sweden there is no legal minimum law. Trade unions and employers arrange wages and working times with each other in conventions. [The same applies to The Netherlands. - nimh] When the Latvian company refused to up its wages, trade unions blockaded the construction site for weeks. Laval un Partneri almost went broke and took the case to the Swedish labour court. The Swedish judges, however, did not want to solve the conflict between the European freedom of service provision and the national right of tariff conventions by itself and forwarded the case to the European Court in Luxemburg.
And this is where European Commissioner [..] McCreevy comes into play. [..] During a visit in Stockholm early October, the Irishman stridently declared he was on the side of the Latvians. Not just the trade unions reacted angrily. The governments of Sweden and Denmark also suddenly saw their national [wage] tariff right threatened from Brussels. The Commission's President Barroso now in Strassbourg rallied to the side of his Commissioner: the Commission was against "artificial protectionism", but also against a downward social spiral. First of all, it had to "guard" the EU law.
When the European Court makes its judgement, what will be at stake is also the political implementation of a European directive that's already nine years old. The Entsende [?] directive from 1996 should have regulated exactly what in Vaxholm apparently went amiss: when employees work in another country, the labour rules of the host country apply.
nimh wrote:My parents, my mother, fought for it, and I'm not ready to give it away in a generous gesture of cosmopolitan world citizenship.
This is a rather new realisation on my part, by the way (foreshadowed by my shift in sympathies in Germany from the Greens to the Leftists) - hence the pathos, perhaps. (That and because it's to do with emotional loyalties. But then, sympathy for multiculturalism is tied in with those, as well.)
It's a tough dilemma.
nimh wrote: The Entsende [?] directive from 1996
Posting of Workers Directive 96/71 EU
More here
but nimh, it is not only britain and holland. it's the whole industrialized world, and if it weren't the polish plumbers coming in, it would be somebody else. britain, ireland, denmark, are drawing in crowds of people, because they need them. because of cheaper labor, sure - but it's not the eastern europeans to blame for, it will not be the turks to be blamed for. if both of these were kept out, others would come. it's a wider social process that is going on around the developed world for some time now. i never said it's good or that i like it or that i don't care. that's a separate question - what to do about the domestic workers in those countries. i just wouldn't find the culprit in 'Drang Nacht Westen".
So to put it simply: I hear you, it is a problem. But the blame lies elsewhere. Even if you cut off the whole of Eastern Europe, the problem would remain, except the workers would be streaming in from elsewhere. Surely it's threatening and upsetting, but the explanation isn't as simple as you make it appear. or as it comes across to me.
on the social democratic welfare. well, for what it's worth, those polish plumbers are now in EU, too. They are threatening the workers in the West. Well, I do have a problem with that. EU does need time to adjust, but adjust it must. And if you wish to remain a social democrat in heart, one that believes in EU, as I think you do, then what to do with them? Are they less worthy? Should we isolate Eastern Europe until their living standards come to par with Western Europe? And how would they ever do that if nobody would be willing to take a hit? That's not a general cosmopolitan world citizenship gesture. We're talking EU. I am not an individualist, I just do have the fates of Easterners on my mind naturally more, as you perhaps do have those of Westerners. You're talking workers of individual western countries, I'm talking EU workers, including the polish plumber.
We'd like the EU to expand further, no? Well, we have to count with further consequences. When and if Croatia joins, it will impact my regions as well. People will grumble, and perhaps rightly so. But there are people in Croatia as well, and if it helps pull a country up, I'm all for it.
Why should the developed countries pay for it, and consequently put their own vulnerable populations at greater risk? Well, that again is a broader question. EU has decided it cannot remain an elitist club of the 15 countries (pfft, it still is anyway, don't even get me started on EU foreign policy, especially trading regulations towards the third world countries...). Perhaps you now think that was a mistake, because the welfare system naturally had to suffer, and will continue to shake for awhile. But we are here, EU is wider, with big differences in the income (say, Austria has something like 130% of EU average GDP per capita annual income, Slovakia and Czech Republic have around 48%). That has to translate somewhere. ...
Anyway, I'm rambling, being very discombobulated today. All I'm saying is that while I hear you, influx of easterners is one minor part of bigger social processes that need to be explained in complexity. otherwise it's taken out of context, it's the fake scapegoat. I'd like a strong social democratic welfare system,too. But for all. We have a new reality. Fear won't help, we need to crack our brains quickly on how the EU system should be adjusted to take those hits and how to bridge over the individual welfare systems that differ as well.
Oooof, more coffee. I can't put all i want into writing. We'll just have to talk one day.
Was at Castle Drogo near exeter on Thursday
http://www.touruk.co.uk/houses/housedev_drogo.htm
Interesting painting depicting the rout of the Muslims outside the gates of Vienna.
Apparantly a Viennese baker produced some cresent-shaped confectionary in celebration of the victory (and in mock reference to the Islamic cresent].
These became known as croissants....
So ask for a croissant for breakfast in Rihyad and perhaps you are asking for trouble.
Question....does anyone know if croissants are served in muslim countries?
ok quick google and story above appears to be complet bollocks as usual
I'm sure they said Vienna, but what's Budapest/Vienna between Austro-Hungarians?
LOL- so the legend about the Viennese Kipferl is also being told in the UK.
I read somewhere that the Crescent symbol was already used in Byzanz before the city was conquered by the Turks. The crescent was then taken as a symbol by the Osman dynasty.
But I don't know if this is a fact or a legend.
.
And the 'Gabelfrüstück' was invented in Deutsch-Gabel (Jablonné v Podjetedí)?
No, seriously:
But the Austrians (and via Vienna the rest of the European and New World) got from the Turkish the heel in 16th century; sweet corn, which was called until 19th century 'Turkish wheat' .... and the Kipferl (crescent), which was first noted in a written source in 12th century.
(And tulpits came in 17th century from Turkey via Vienna to Europe - but don't tell this nimh!)
All infos from: Auf den Spuren der Türken in Wien [In the footsteps of the Turks in Vienna] (Wiener Osteuropa Studien, Band 14), Frankfurt/Main, 2002 [p. 161-166]
What credence can be placed in someone's statements when he cannot spell "breakfast" correctly or translate "traces" accurately and all these are problems in his alleged mother tongue, German?
I'm very sceptical about the good faith of many posters here starting with the gentleman in question.........
Walter Hinteler wrote:And the
'Gabelfrüstück' was invented in Deutsch-Gabel (Jablonné v Podjetedí)?
No, seriously:
But the Austrians (and via Vienna the rest of the European and New World) got from the Turkish the heel in 16th century; sweet corn, which was called until 19th century 'Turkish wheat' .... and the Kipferl (crescent), which was first noted in a written source in 12th century.
(And tulpits came in 17th century from Turkey via Vienna to Europe - but don't tell this nimh!)
All infos from: Auf den Spuren der Türken in Wien [In the footsteps of the Turks in Vienna] (Wiener Osteuropa Studien, Band 14), Frankfurt/Main, 2002 [p. 161-166]
.....in case of doubt please refer to italicised words above........
????????????
tulpits
??
...........sorry italics didn't work in post, must review forum instructions.......
Louise_R_Heller wrote:What credence can be placed in someone's statements when he cannot spell "breakfast" correctly or translate "traces" accurately and all these are problems in his alleged mother tongue, German?
I'm very sceptical about the good faith of many posters here starting with the gentleman in question.........
You mean Magister Kerstin Tomenendal? At least her book is wellknown amongst historians and partly online, like e.g.
on this Radio Austria (ORF) website.
If you are referring to my typos, well, if you decide such to be the standard of judging someone's knowledge - that's okay for me.
However, I gave the complete reference to that book, even noted the pages.
So why didn't you look it up before arguing?
Re:credence -
I found that Walter is honest and reliable and takes great care in finding trustworthy sources.
If I find a post ( written by any member A2K) which I doubt or mistrust then I can ask or do a research on my own.
What I finally believe is my own take.
Re: spelling/ typos
I don't think that a typo has any influence on credibility. In a conversation I can't see her/his spelling, but still I can chose to believe or not.
I tend to take everything written in the forum with caution, but I enjoy to have the opportunity to learn more.
The reinforcement of Austrian-Turkish scientific, cultural and educational cooperation on bilateral and EU level is the primary task of the OTW. A Turkish proverb says that 'knowledge will grow as long as you share it' (http://www.otw.co.at/otw/index.php/e/a/217)
Louise_R_Heller wrote:I'm very sceptical about the good faith of many posters here starting with the gentleman in question.........
Louise, as you continue to participate here, as I hope you will, you will come to know that Walter is the last person to be accused of bad faith, and you might wish to reconsider your statement above.
