Poland-EU: Positive and negative features?

What do you see positive or negative in being a member of EU state (doesn't have to be necessarily Poland)? It does if you post this on the main forums

Not replying this question extensively, I see several great things at a spot:
1. Freedom of travelling, lack of borders within the Schengen group, no passport or visas needed
2. Freedom of choosing a place to work
3. Car insurance covering whole Europe; no "green card" needed anymore
4. Possibility to easily comparing prices in different Euro (currency) countries; Euro (currency) trade not loosing on currency exchange within Eurozone.
5. Access to EU funds helping development of new EU members.
6. Internet trade within EU, no import tax. You are not limited anymore to buying in your own country
7. Liberal customs law, for example any EU citizen can carry up to 90 litres of wine within Europe, no extra tax.

Cons I see right on the spot:
1. The Brussels bureaucracy...
2. ...Enforcing quite stupid laws, such as smoking ban, for example

Paying high taxes to help out countries, either because they don't have their budgets on order, they need to build motorways, their farmers need help, etc ... etc ... . I pay (yes I still do, but not for that long anymore) 48% taxes. At the end of this month my holiday money comes in. Officially it is 8% of ones yearly wages; but as soon as it is paid out only 52% remains. The rest goes to the government.

In the Netherlands every person, so including babies and the elderly, pays about €2.500 a year in taxes to the EU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Far, far, far too much. And when these peeps in Brussels also insist on traveling to Stassburg once a month (which apparently costs 1mln each time), I really have some problems with that.

And now that some countries want to increase the EU's budget while there is an economic crisis going on, I wonder where those that are in favour of an increased budget have been living in the last couple of years. On the dark side of the moon maybe?? Every country has to implement budget cuts and then some finance idiot in the EU (we all know who we are talking about) says he wants to increase the budget. Well ... no FVCKING way! I agree completely with the English and the Dutch (and other) governments to stop increasing EU's budget. Not now.

And don't enlarge the EU even more. It's enough; well, to be honest it already went to far.

Pros ... free movement of persons (although there are countries questioning that principle - and rightly so if you ask me), goods and services.

Idiotic law. Centrally planned economy. The bureaucracy.

Well...that not or we wouldn't experience such a crisis as with Greece or Portugal or Ireland today.
Every country can still make or break their economies for themselves..

The de facto ban on little people having foreign bank accounts (this came in supposedly to encourage competition in banking).

EU foreign policy bureau - how many millions for Baroness Ashton's outfit? And, yeah, who is she? Worse than Rumpy (oh dear, spelling)

EU is loved by some, including me.... for so many reasons. The only thing I'd do would be to admit Croatia.... so f....ing beautiful there! (just got back from a trip to CRO)

And start paying more taxes to develop the country? Or to support loss-making parts of the economy? No, thank you! Enough is enough. You don't have to pay 48% income tax, do you? By the time you do, you will say the same thing.

yeah, when I was in Poland, I saw those signs "supported by the EU" everywhere. From the Polish point of view, the cash flow from the EU must be undeniably seen as the most important thing after joining the EU.


yep, unfortunitely.

Best law ever!

Smoking ban is an EU-law now?

Just recently Bavaria implemented wide spread smoking bans all for herself....in other german federal states it is not as bad....

LOL I don't know, I don't care. It's better to have smoking out of public places, though :)

Indeed, stupid law.. (there is similar law here too and it too is stupid.)

Is there any cigaratte factory in EU domain? I am sure there are.
If there is smoking law, you should close cigaratte factories too.
If you aren't doing this, you are doing bla bla, showing an appearence to people as if you are civil, etc - to be able to get the votes from people.

I'm an ex-smoker but I have some sympathy for the poor sods send out to freeze for a fag....

I don't. If smoking becomes a necessary physiological activity for you, you are the one who screwed yourself, not anyone else. You should not make others suffer because of that.

Just hot from the press...


So here, wink, wink :-)

Aha...a fanatic anti-smoker! ;)

Not really. I don't care if you smoke at home, as long as I don't have to breathe the smoke.

Poland should definitely not become a model for other countries. Economic growth is still mostly fueled by a cheap workforce.

well, following the logic: if you don't want to breathe the smoke, just avoid places where people smoke... smokers have to adjust and non-smokers not?

Nope.


What de facto ban?

Is this another of your unfounded statements?

This is ridiculous. It seems one of the ways for the EU to cut its budget is to reduce independency of the member states, making local governments redundant and thus non-expensive. Or the other way around, but it will weaken the Union both politically and economically.

What about the economies of the economically-weaker states? Are they simply taken over and reduced to the resourses-base while the markets are flooded with the produce of the few? Or it is somehow supported to help the initial adaptation to the higher western standards?I have no real idea, since I haven't been to the EU, besides Poland, not long after it became a member.

wbj.pl/article-54501-polish-firms-heading-for-overseas-investment-record.html

One more reason I like the EU: After Poland's accession to the Union, the price of any alcoholic beverages imported from EU dropped down immensely. Not that the domestic vodka were expensive... Vodka price in Poland.

That's nice to hear. So, making judgement on the post I read there are much more positive elements than negative and the developping economy has a chance to succeed. That's great.


Did people start drinking more? Or it was like a forbidden fruit, when produced in abundance, everyone stopped paying attention? ;)

There are many possible answers. This is mine: People drink themselves to death out of lack of opportunities, to start with. If you earn more than enough just to survive but not enough to buy yourself some tangible goods - you drink away all that precious little. Most of the people I have met in Canada drink socially, but not to drink away their car payments, mortgages, kids futures, etc. But those who drink a lot work for several buck an hour, under the table, uninsured, often risking their health and life.

Neither. With the low price and high quality of domestic beer and vodka, the price decrease meant nothing to most of Polish consumers. Yet, European wine, whisky, liquors and the like stuff are simply easier for buying for people who want drink such stuff. I'm so glad I can buy Sheridan's at far lower price than it was pre-EU, Spanish or Italian red wines are cheaper, my friends who prefer whisky are happy, too. Czech Becherovka, Hungarian Unicum (herb liqueurs) are available at approximately the same price as where these are made. The ban on Absinth has been relieved.

On the other hand, Bourbon, Tequila, Carribean rum etc. are still expensive since these are imported from non-EU countries.

Quite simple - if that my hobby or other activity causes discomfort or may cause discomfort to other people, at least I should ask if it's OK to do it in their presence or wait until I'm alone altogether.

Honestly I find alcoholism much worse than smoking...there are rarely brawls because of to many cigarettes, nor beating of wives, nor driving under smoke with killing many innocents on the streets...nor any other criminal acts because of smoking contrary to alcohol.

Smoking is not half as bad and desastreous....(I'm an ex-smoker but I'm tolerant enough).

Banning smoking is to patronizing for me...like a nanny-state deciding for it's "underaged" subjects what's good for them. There is something definitely wrong here....

All these issues are caused by people though, not alcohol itself. I am never aggressive when drunk, never hit any of my ex girlfriends when drunk etc. People who did such things should be punished for it, their wives should leave them.

On top of that, you can't drink in public places in Poland and I don't know why you flipped it into an alcohol vs smoking discussion.


It's banning smoking in public places.

...if it consoles you my posts will wander into the random bin soon enough.