Croatians Vote on EU Membership

[Ushtari]

Problem Croats?

[Mordid]

hey Croats....EU is a money pit....only join if you are looking for a handout/bailout

[MandM]

Pro and con to join EU. pleas tell men if somthing is missing or changed

- Free trade in between 27 powerful economies
- Free movement of citizens and goods between these countries
- Co-ordinated environmental legislation [important because precious habitats in Europe often cross borders]
- Provides a voice for usually-unelected parties like the Greens, UKIP, BNP, etc.
- Provides support for minority languages within Europe like Irish, Scots Gaelic, etc.
- Huge economic clout worldwide as a single bloc - when the EU is at the debating table in a unified form, we represent 400 million people with the largest combined economy in the world.

Cons:
- Until Lisbon is ratified, the unelected Commission holds too much power compared to the council of heads of state or the elected Parliament. This is slowly changing, but not fast enough. Lisbon removes a lot of power from the Commission, actually.
- There is a lot of bureaucracy within the EU - the European Civil Service is surprisingly large for a small organisation with limited policy-making power, even if it does extend over 27 states.
- The CAP is probably the most absurd policy I've ever studied. Why are we paying ****** French farmers not to grow things? On top of this, the blatant favouritism it shows to France above all other states is pretty annoying for the farmers of the other 26 nations. It's about time it was reformed/scrapped
- The EU's policy on fisheries leaves a lot to be desired. It's not ecologically sound, but at the same time it's killing the businesses of fishermen.
- There is undoubtedly a lot of corruption in the EU, but it lies in the civil service and commission, and not in the Parliament. Give the Parliament more powers, and it could fix this
- The EU has passed other damaging laws such as targets to increase bio fuel production, meanwhile a billion people in the world are starving to death.
- The EU imposes trading restrictions on other continents, e.g. on Africas agriculture.
- The centralisation of power means the politicans have a harder and harder job in truly representing the people, I support the opposite of centralised power; I want to localise it more and more so people are truly represented properly.

[poiuytrewq0987]

The only difference between the EU and Yugoslavia is that Croatia won't be one of the leading nations nor one of the largest economies in the union. It will probably be marginalized but it's not all bad as Croatia will benefit a lot from joining the EU economically... just that it won't have much say in EU politics. That's all France/Germany.

[Lena]

Zaista neočekivan rezultat. :\

Brain drain comes instantly to my mind. Pity...

Although the rate of emigration of doctors in Croatia has been very low in the past several years, the journals warn that this number could increase significantly with Croatia entering the EU, that is, with the liberalisation of the labour market.
http://dalje.com/en-croatia/not-enou...-croatia/31159