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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.

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The first victim of the Barcelona EU summit (15-16 March) was the spirit of the free market. Again EU leaders tried to bring together two things that seem to be irreconcilable - the social welfare tradition on the continent with the aim of catching with the US economy in terms of productivity and competitiveness. No way to do this, say even the friends of EU integration. For them the political choice to be made is simple. It's between the social nets that make people unmotivated to work hard and the free market, which is ruled by the profits' considerations. When you choose the strong social system, you receive the stability at the price of slower economic dynamic, when you want to accelerate the economic development you have to be ready to sacrifice at least part of the social protection system*.

During the EU summit the Spanish city of Barcelona was a scene of mass demonstrations organized by the so-called anti-globalization groups. Many of them see the EU institutions as a front-post of the US economic imperialism (whatever it means). For them words like "US", "globalization", "war" have become synonyms. The problem isn't that these groups are big. Their influence comes from the fact that they can heat up the public opinion in many European countries, where by different reasons the majority looks with big dose of skepticism at the USA.

During the summit in Barcelona the EU leaders reiterated their goal till the end of this decade to reach the parity with the US in terms of productivity and competitiveness. This goal was for the first time set up 2 years ago and since then it has become a cornerstone for any major EU program on the economic front. At the same time EU didn't touch or change any major welfare program reiterating its goal to maintain the full employment. The promises to shake up some state welfare programs remain to be accomplished in a distant future, that means for the period after 2010.

Anti-globalization movement can be pleased with the summit outcomes even if its representatives blame EU as being US-like structure putting profits above the people's interests. On the other hand businessmen and liberal politicians within the Union have remained disappointed. They say that the market liberalization reforms don't go too far too fast and that the EU won't soon reach its goal of catching with the US. For some of them the summit in Barcelona was just a "manana" meeting.

How to reconcile the anti-globalization movement and local industry leaders? EU has the answer. I won't say it's the right one but at least we can't deny then the right to try some - Barcelona summit decided to put additional taxes on steel imports from the US. This will satisfy both the anti-American lobby and the local steel-makers. So we see, anytime when EU reaches some economic compromise among its members, the first victim is the spirit of the free market.

* - This economic common sense has been understood perfectly by the European Central Bank president Wim Duisenberg. In a recent interview to the Spanish press he say: "I am resigned to thinking that perhaps we will never reach the level (of competitiveness) of the United States". (Reuters)

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