Archived Articles

Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

Global Real Estate Project
News Index

Directories
  Int'l Realty
  US Realty

There are many analyses of the 10th anniversary of NAFTA these days and perhaps the most interesting point in all these materials is the small detail lost in the sea of rhetoric. This small detail is that NAFTA is not 10 but 15 years old and that originally it included only two instead of three countries, namely Canada and the United States. I'm sure that if it has continued to be a game of two, it wouldn't have been so interesting to the world economic gurus and social activists. What made this trade area so unique was that it tried to embrace countries standing on very different level of economic development. The next such example will occur in the next 3-4 years, when the European Union gets on board Bulgaria and Romania.

The last 15 years of free trade in North America were coincidentally a period of intensive and extensive European integration build-up. The European community of 12 became Union of 15 and the next year will be extended to 10 new members. At that time Western Europe abolished most of the remaining barriers to the free flow of goods, services, capitals and labor, and right now it's working on its constitution, a document designed to deep the integration into some new political and security areas. This European process of integration continued in the last 15 years no matter how well or bad the continental economy was performing.

On the other hand, after including Mexico into NAFTA 10 years ago, the integration processes in America were stalled. Even the far more modest idea of opening the national markets to goods and services meets serious resistance among any type of people - politicians, social activists, environmental defenders, economists and businessmen, to mention a few. At the time when the Europeans already couldn't remember how their old national currencies looked like, the American nations still quarrel over the orange juice tariffs. Why America lags behind the Europeans in its integration?

First, the European project from its onset was designed to include some supranational bodies. The first still working European institution is the Coal and Steel authority of early 50's. The European motto then was "to keep the Russians out and the Germans down", so everything was made in order to tie-up the Germans with as many as possible supranational institutions (European Commission, European Parliament, European Council, and common currency). In Americas there is no such beast as supranational umpire to pull out sovereignty from the nation-states. Everyone is desperately trying to keep as many as possible power under its government control and in case of conflict to find solutions by bilateral or multilateral dealings among the governments.

Second, Europe has expended by applying equal standards in everything from the labor rights to milk acidity to its new members as a precondition for entering. When you are a farmer in France you have to apply strictly hundreds of European bylaws even if your production is for sale in your home village only. In Americas the milk producers basically are limited in their choice how much water to pour into their milk only by the regulations, which apply to the market where the milk will be sold. When the market has stricter regulations, the quality of the product is expected to be higher.

Third, in Europe even the stronger state contributes to no more than 30% of the total economy. The integration has been perceived by the others as a method of restraining the most powerful. With the rest being equal, the Europeans will prefer to deepen their integration. In Americas the most powerful contributes of much more than half of the total economy. In this case every step toward integration is perceived by the rest of the company as a way of increasing the power of the hegemonic state. With all the rest being equal, the smaller American countries will prefer to stay separated from the United States as much and as longer as possible. The only reason why they would like to integrate their economies is that someone else will do this earlier and they will lose their comparative economic advantages.

Americas have different economic and political legacy than the Europeans so it won't be reasonable to expect that the integration here or there will take the same forms. 15 years after the first small steps toward opening the markets, Americas still need broader vision for their economic and social development. The European with American help had such vision 50 years ago.

--------------------

See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of North America.