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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
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European Babel Tower already speaks 20 languages
4 years after EU have boldly declared its goal to become by 2010 the most competitive economic block in the world economy isn't the strongest achievement of Brussels. The most important countries - Germany and France need economic and social reforms to boots their economies from the freezing point. The trade unions and other strong lobbying groups don't allow so much needed reforms to take place. They still believe they can cope with the globalization challenges without fastening their belts. When societies as rich as those in Western Europe experience such malaise they can afford for some time to do nothing as we see in other areas of the world as far as Japan. What the politicians see from their taller "church towers" isn't obvious for those for whom the bread-and-butter problems, the job security and/or free medicare are the only things people should be concerned of. It's so hard to convince the public that the situation isn't as rosy as it may appear and the traditional economic and political medicine isn't working as in the good old times. This is hard to digest even in countries like the United States, which were built upon the free enterprise. For Europe, which was instead built upon state intervention throughout the centuries it's even harder to understand. The actual enlargement can to a certain degree clear the field for new bold economic policy in Western Europe. It will do so by making the economic and social situation there look much worse, thus forcing the public to reconsider its old thinking. How this could happen in reality? Not today, not right now, but gradually the cheaper workforce from the new members will attract some of the businesses from the richer countries. Here we're talking about differences in the remuneration between some member states that can reach 5 times. At certain point this attraction by the cheaper workforce will be significant enough to make difference on the job market in countries like Germany or France. The money will flow away. Whole businesses will flow away. Old businesses won't create new jobs fearing strong trade-unions, but will export them to the East. Where no strict collective contracts exist, the cheaper workforce will be imported. This process, which has already started in the previous years, will gradually take momentum. The western social systems will have to adapt to the new realities or face high constant and alarming unemployment rates and endangered state retirement plans. Three years from now, when Bulgaria and Romania add some new 30 million European citizens, they will pull away jobs no only from Western but also from Central Europe. For many years to come these new markets won't be significant enough to justify the enlargement of EU. They will become significant, but not before having significantly changed the mentality of their western neighbors.
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