Sunday 1 May 2011

Two Thirds Of Germans Now Eurosceptic

A Case about Bird Flu highlights a poll by Allensbach which shows that 67% of Germans now have little or no trust in the EU, indicating a dramatic loss of confidence in the project, and only a minority believe that the eurozone stability fund will save the euro currency.

Also today - ironically on Labour day - Germany's restrictions on free movement of workers, which were negotiated in 2004 when Eastern European countries joined the EU, hits the 7 year deadline and comes to an end. The Telegraph reports that the Germans are now bracing themselves for a influx of Polish workers on the scale that happened here in the UK:

Under European Union rules that come into force on Sunday, May 1, Germany will open its doors fully to jobseekers from Poland and other Eastern European nations for the first time, paving the way for a flood of cut-price carpenters, plumbers and other budget labour of the kind that swept Britain in 2004.

However, with German trade unions predicting that up to a million Poles may arrive in the first year alone, not everyone feels like welcoming the new arrivals from the other side of the River Oder.

Now Germany's moratorium is expiring - just as the global recession and last summer's Eurozone crash mean severe cuts in health, social service and welfare budgets in Europe's biggest economy.

That has fuelled a German swing against immigration in general, and a growing sense that a people which has long supported the EU project no longer gets a fair deal.

The deadline also applies to France and Italy - just what these countries need when they are already squealing about current problems in the Schengen area. Immigration and nationalism is now beginning to become an issue in a country which for very obvious historical reasons has avoided debate:

There was also rare criticism of Mrs Merkel from a senior member of her own centre-right party, Erika Steinbach, who warned that the CDU was seen as too left-wing on immigration, and that a charismatic politician could easily peel off voters to a new hard-right party.

Another renegade ex-CDU member, Rene Stadtkewitz, has already announced the creation of a right-wing Freedom Party similar to that of Geert Wilders in Holland.

Success for such a party would mark a decisive break with Germany's post war-liberal consensus, in which memories of Nazism have often inhibited frank discussion on nationalist issues.

It's all very well promoting the ideal of abolishing something as intrinsically important to the human condition as the nation state, but all that happens is it strongly provokes the very reaction you're trying to abolish.

7 comments:

  1. I have relatives there and they say the Germans are none to pleased about the Polish coming and undercutting them either.

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  2. I can well believe it Sue, I used to live there and the Germans were far more Eurosceptic than they were given credit for. Only thing that stops them is historical guilt and that is being vastly diluted with every generation.

    I often wonder if Germany will be out before us.

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  3. I have had the chance to talk to some German contractors at my place of work. They told me that when the Euro came in they went from being paid 2000 Deich Marks to being paid 2000 Euro's "but the price of milk doubled!" They are not very happy with the EU!

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  4. If you follow the economic logic, it's actually puzzling that being anti-immigration is seen as 'right wing' and being pro-immigration is seen as 'left wing'.

    Actually, immigration tends to benefit the already wealthy and makes the working class worse off, so really, Tories should be pro-immigration and Labour should be against.

    (For my own part, I'm perfectly happy for anybody to go anywhere he wants, provided he learns the language, fits in, plays by the rules etc).

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  5. Stephen Engledow2 May 2011 at 02:05

    I lived & worked in Germany for many years. The impression i got is they welcome everybody who is prepared to live life to their standards but reject those that try to make German standards change to suit them. Multiculturalism is a failure they know it & this country also needs to admit it!

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  6. Michael Hughes2 May 2011 at 07:05

    So let me get this right. THE lynch-pin country behind the entire EU project has NOT acceded to free-flow of labour until now and we, the United Kingdom, who is not even in the "inner circle" of the EU, DID!

    Are we completely and utterly stupid or what? We seriously need the biggest shake up in history. We are idle, witless and slavish to anything and everything foreign people dictate to us.

    What the hell did our grandparents die for? What they hell do we think we are doing allowing freedom to be eroded on a daily basis, while we still moo our way to the voting booth and select Tory, Labour or Lib Dem?

    What will it take for the British people to finally wake up and, above all, stand up?

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  7. It is a case of a post WWII 'collective guilt' warring with German sensibilities and those sensibilities have always been pro Northern Aryan extraction.

    Realpolitik is coming back in Germany and when it does, better watch out.

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