GET SOME MORE STARS OUT, BETSY:

In Search of 'Community' ( Kevin Hassett, 10/09/2002, Tech Central Station)

There are currently 13 candidate countries [for EU membership], and the majority of them are countries that only recently emerged from communist rule. These ten include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia. These countries have undergone
remarkable changes in the past 15 years. Will the next ten transform them even more?

My conversations with government leaders lead me to believe that there is an appropriate skepticism among the candidate countries concerning the intrusive regulation and bureaucracy of the EU. There is genuine concern that socialist bureaucrats will partly turn back the clock to communism. It was, for example, almost impossible to make it through a session without hearing at least one mention of the fact that the EU has strict regulations concerning even the curvature of bananas (these are designed, of course, to aid French colonies in the Caribbean). What other flights of fancy might await members in the future? There was clearly a great deal of concern.

So why join? On this, after seeing the gamut of stories, one can only conclude that the economic arguments are secondary. What really matters is security and attachment. The word "community" is the real attraction.

Before these countries toss away their futures, why don't we offer them NAFTA membership? or even statehood? Posted by Orrin Judd at September 10, 2002 8:16 PM