Above all, Bulgaria needs time!

This blogs position on migration within the European Union is for open borders among all members states and to let people work and settle where they want. Although the numbers were larger than expected, and there have been some negatives, I believe the influx of Central and Eastern Europeans to Britain in the last two or three years has been a net benefit. Last year I welcomed the Polish plumber, and other posts have been similarly positive. Other members states have recognised the benefits too and are opening their borders to Eastern European workers: eight states so far, from an initial three.

But I recognise that there are potential downsides, and that the proposed accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU from January 2007 pose some thorny problems. No wonder some UK ministers are getting cold feet - and not just the Home Secretary. So in the interests of balance, I publish below a comment posted today on this weblog by Sam Took. I don't know who he/she is, but the post is worthy of a wider audience. Comments welcome.

WHY BULGARIA'S ACCESSION BRINGS SHAME ON US ALL

Recent comments about the accession of Eastern European states and the preoccupation with low paid jobs shows an astonishing naivety what Bulgaria is really about.

It is now widely recognised that what were seen as the last minute obstacles to Bulgaria's accession to the European Union are concerns about its ability to deal with crime and corruption. What politicians will not admit is that the problems could not possibly have been solved within the time allowed for accession . In many respects Bulgaria has to walk miles and yet it will be admitted to full membership after having taken, what amounts to only a first faltering step. I cringe when I hear politicians praising Bulgaria's efforts to put its house in order. Those of us who have lived and worked in Bulgaria know that there is a deep malaise here. The fact is that the Government in Sofia ( and its predecessor ) has lied continuously to Brussels, made promises and given undertakings which it has neither the wit nor the will to keep. Consider these things:-

1. Corruption is endemic. Prosecutions are very rare and convictions much rarer. There are only a couple of instances in which officials have received a prison sentence. In most cases even when caught redhanded, the perpetrators do not even lose their jobs. Many of the most serious culprits are post-holders and cannot therefore be dismissed. In recent times the Government has set up an information campaign inviting the public to inform on corrupt officials by channeling complaints through a confidential hotline. Under the legal system it appears impossible for any Bulgarian official to be convicted on the strength of such a tipoff. Bulgaria has a distinguished history of paying lip service to anti-corruption measures; they have attended every international conference, adopted every protocol and signed up to every initiative but the problem is as deeply-rooted as ever. The current 'anti-corruption campaign' will be as successful as its predecessors and appears to be just a PR stunt for the benefit of the European Commission.

2. Every bit of institutional foreign funding, including the pre-accession funding, which has ever reached Bulgaria has been plundered by corrupt politicians and officials. Sofia has promised that there will be "full transparency and accountability" of all future European funding. Such promises have been made in the past and have always been broken.

3. Organised crime in Bulgaria really is 'organised'.The Government in Sofia admits the existence of powerful overlords ( they were prepared to call it an oligarchy ) who have prospered since the fall of communism in what the Commission itself called "a climate of impunity ". They exercise a huge amount of influence over public figures and own large parts of the domestic economy. They are so deeply entrenched that they are de facto the Establishment and needless to say their position is unaffected by changes in the Administration. Bulgaria has a 100 percent record of failure in prosecuting organised crime and there is no possibility that this will change any time soon. Sofia will offer instead disingenuous apologies and say that it should not be judged on the outcome of any one particular case as one prosecution after another falls over, entirely predictably, like dominoes.

4. A real war on crime would need a free press and this it does not truly have in Bulgaria. It is not free of political interference and it is certainly not free of the oligarchs. Investigative journalists ( and there have been a few ) have been assassinated and their offices broken into and filing cabinets stolen. Also corrupt figures in public life have been protected by having news agencies prosecuted for making express or implied accusations about them, without of course any regard to whether the allegations are true or not. This is possible because the law of defamation is a criminal matter in Bulgaria and not just a civil one as it is in the UK.

5. Bulgaria is a marshalling yard for crimes which are aimed at Western Europe. These include the trafficking of children and young women, enforced labour, enforced prostitution, drug and tobacco smuggling, the forging of Euro notes, bank and credit card fraud and the theft of high-end luxury cars. The proceeds of crime are easily laundered in Bulgaria and the proceeds invested on an industrial scale, typically these days in tourism, building and all kinds of new property.

6. The system for the administration of criminal justice is stultified by corruption and incompetence. The new criminal justice code makes the police responsible for handling prosecutions ( rather than the Prosecutor's Office ). The police have not had this responsibility in the past and are ill-prepared to undertake it now. So there is no change to report there: the new system, having been in operation for about one year, like the old system has a 100 perent record of failure in prosecuting organised crime. Prosecutions are occasionally brought but when the case comes to trial witnesses are keen to withdraw their testimonies and crucial evidence has either been lost or compromised.

7. Victims of crime and witnesses are as chaff in the wind in a system which does nothing to protect them. Sofia, to its eternal shame, has told Brussels that it has a 'witness protection programme'. It has no such thing; on the contrary witnesses are routinely betrayed and misrepresented by corrupt investigators and prosecutors furthering a criminals defence in return for a few pieces of silver.

8. Modern Bulgaria is a disaster area in terms of civil rights, not simply because of its so-called legal system. It is an uncaring and heartless place. Its young people are disaffected and want to leave in large numbers. Its record on women's rights and Roma rights, care of its orphans and its mentally ill, are as evil as you can find anywhere.

But hold on a minute.... surely it's all over! The fact is that the decision to admit Bulgaria on 1st January has almost certainly already been taken no matter what horrors have to be glossed over to achieve it. Roman Herzog, senior statesman, recently described the circumstances of Bulgaria's entry as "disgraceful". He was entirely right!

It is all over bar the shouting and the euphoria which will follow in Bulgaria when its accession to the European Union on 1st January 2007 is announced as we believe it will be in mid-September. The expansionists appear to be the majority and will have their way but not without a good deal of hypocrisy in the telling. Sofia will be praised for its sterling efforts in fighting crime and corruption ( sic ). The European Billions will be be poured into this particular black hole never to be seen again. They will slap themselves on the back with the image of jolly backward peasants hurtling merrily towards the 21st Century with huge benefits all round.

In considering all the above you may well ask who is going to benefit from Bulgaria's entry? Is it you? Is it ordinary Bulgarians or will it be their own fellow-countrymen who most notoriously abuse them?

Having billions of Euros poured into this place's infrastructure is not the answer. It is Bulgaria's moral ecomomy which is bankrupt. Bulgaria certainly needs help but, much more than gold it needs expertise in law enforcement, constitutional and civil rights reform and direction in the improvement of care for those who can least fend for themselves.

Above all Bulgaria needs time! Given assistance and with the political will to make things happen Bulgaria really could become a worthy partner rather than a pariah. Then there really would be something to celebrate and I would be the first to acknowledge it. But that time is not now.

Comments

[John F. Opie]

Hi -

I've got several Bulgarians working with me and I just took the time to show them this piece. I've been very impressed by the ones that I've been working with: hard-working, dedicated and on the ball in all cases, not a slacker among them...

If anything, they say that you're not only dead on, but also that the situation in Bulgaria is even worse than what has been reported in this article. One woman hasn't been back in 5 years because of the endemnic problems; another goes back only once every two years for the same reason.

Of course, the folks in Bruxelles merrily ignore this whole problem in order to either reap the glory that managing the accession or have already gotten their piece of the pie. After all, corruption is nothing new to the faceless bureaucrats and unelected officials of the EU, is it?

John

[Blissex]

Well, my position on EU immigration is that the EU is a political institution and project, and ''ever closer union'' does rely on things like freedom of movement, so I find the restrictions on A8 immigration that some countries have chosen to be not very nice at all.

At the same time immigration can be very disruptive, and I find statements like

«I believe the influx of Central and Eastern Europeans to Britain in the last two or three years has been a net benefit.»

to be quite astute in their vagueness. Of net benefit to whom? And as to

«But I recognise that there are potential downsides»

that is more fancy verbiage: «potential» indeed :-)! And downsides for whom?

A8 immigration has been a political necessity, and those who have born the costs of this necessity have got themselves not even a ''thank you very much'' for their troubles.

As to Bulgaria and Romania, the question should have been whether entering the Union now was wise, as some comments say.

Since the answer has been ''now'', and won't change, for political reasons, then freedom of movement should follow, for political reasons. Or else the EU should formalize its dual nature as a political union for a core and a trade union for the rest.

Anyhow the situation in Bulgaria seems entirely similar and perhaps not as bad as the one in southern Italy, and the EU has managed to grudgingly survive that.

Italy had largely the same problem with the south; many northern italians thought political unification had been too quick; but the country survived.

And as to freedom of movement, just as it happened in Italy when many millions of really poor southern Italians emigrated to northern Italy, that is an essential component as to improving the lot of the poor parts of a political union and to make them less desperate.

The deed is done, and to do it halfway like with the A8 is not that nice. And for most people in the rich bits of the EU it may be better to offshore production to cheaper places within the EU than to far away India or China, and within a political union offshoring may be better than immigration (viceversa outside probably).

[jon livesey]

I don't have any particular position on immigration. Sometimes it's a net benefit, sometimes not. However, we should recognize that there may be some dangers to democracy here. If a western European voter were to say "My Prime Mininster went to Brussels and signed documents I didn't even read, let along get a vote on, but now I have to pay for the consequences in welfare and other costs", how should we answer? Do we just say "Too bad, chum. Sorry about your tax raise, or about you losing your job, but it's just that ever closer union jazz?"

And the answer isn't that Mr Voter is just "wrong". Politics is about perceptions as much as it is about reality.

[Blissex]

«Do we just say "Too bad, chum. Sorry about your tax raise, or about you losing your job, but it's just that ever perceptions as much [ ... ] as it is about reality.closer union jazz?"»

But most voters are older than immigrants and own assets unlike immigrants, so as far as voters are concerned, immigrants make it easier to find cheap staff (for gardening, or as employees, or for the NHS), and they are of benefit.

The typical story about immigration to the UK is that the middle classes are delighted with being able to extract better value from both foreign born and native underclass workers:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,24392-2189923,00.html

«The British middle classes have welcomed the newcomers as cheap but industrious workers in their homes and restaurants. A survey of Polish migrants published last week revealed that they believe their “whiteness” to be an advantage in getting work here. British whites probably feel little anxiety about migrants who look European and come from a mainly Christian country, especially as many will go home once they have made some money.»

http://WWW.Telegraph.co.UK/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/07/02/do0202.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/07/02/ixopinion.html

«It is bizarre that the Labour Party, which still continues to insist that it is the party of the poor and vulnerable, should endorse a policy the purpose of which is the creation of what Marx called "a reserve army of labour": a pool of workers whose presence ensures that rates of pay for cleaners and ancillary staff in the NHS can be kept as low as possible.»

As to the the traditional upper-middle classes like doctors, the government is rather keen to protect them:

http://news.BBC.co.UK/1/low/health/4928954.stm

«Health minister Lord Warner told the BBC's Today programme the change was necessary as competition for jobs grew. "What we have done is make sure that we are becoming more self-sufficient in training our own doctors," he said. "There has been a 70% increase in the number of medical school intakes over the last seven or eight years and we have to find and ensure that there are post graduate specialist training posts."»

The average voter is quite pleased with making the Poles (or Bulgarians or Romanians) work hard for little pay. It is the minority of people who compete with the immigrants that are not so happy, and they matter little electorally, and the ''middle class'' majority could not care less.

[A. PERLA]

"This blogs position on migration within the European Union is for open borders among all members states and to let people work and settle where they want."

Noble sentiment but naive and unworkable.

Employment in Europe is NOT like the US. If you lose your job in Boston, stateside, you might find another in Biloxi. If you lose your job in Bratislava, you don't go looking for another in Bordeaux.

(The problem today in the south of Europe, which is occupying the headlines, are the thousands of hapless Africans literally washing up on Europe's southern shores. That can only be addressed by selective immigration.)

As for the Polish Plumber, yes he should be welcome in France. The Polish Doctor is already welcome in the UK, so why not elsewhere? The accession rules (in most cases a gradual accessibility to national labor markets by the new EU members drawn out over a 7 year period) are in place simply to not worsen a local unemployment situation.

The UK simply does not have the same magnitude of problem in that those unemployed coming from the UE sometimes seek very enjoyable unemployment compensation or family assistance, which permits them to install themselves permanently. This is simply not on in countries struggling with 10% unemployment at the moment.

The EU mentallity remains one that thinks of itself as an aggregation (and not federation) of national states ... meaning that it is not the least bit harmonized in terms of compensation to the unemployed. The situation has therefore become uncontrollable. Migrants are not fools - they cherry pick where they want to settle based upon local state aids.

Get a common immigration policy right and things will go better. But, this means that jobs must exist BEFORE and not AFTER people migrate. And, I use the word migrate intentionally. A great percentage of people from Eastern Europe do not wish it immigrate, but simply migrate momentarily. They are thinking of getting a financial bundle together towards going back one day to settle permanently in their home country. This should be encouraged since it is certainly more efficient that some idiot civil servant in Brussels determining where EU country development monies should be attributed.

[A. PERLA]

Blissex : "At the same time immigration can be very disruptive, and I find statements like .... to be quite astute in their vagueness. Of net benefit to whom?"

To me, for one. I just hired a Hungarian plumber to fix a leak whilst the French variety was off sunning himself on some Mediterranean beach.

Not only, but the Hungarian plumber (totally legal) works at a rate just above the minimum wage and not twice that rate like his French counterpart. And, even at that rate, he is earning more money than he ever would in Hungary. (He's also spending a lot more of it on housing, however.)

Outsourcing has caused jobs to flee most Western EU countries towards climates that were more labor-rate friendly, typically in Eastern Europe (but also obviously to China). Skilled migrants from those eastern countries will do the same in construction where the need is greatest (at least in France and I think quite possibly as much in Germany and the UK.)

Physical residence has only one impact on labor-rate ... local social charges applied. A programmer working in Latvia for a French bank developing mission critical software will get his/her Latvian local rate. The Polish Plumber working in France will get an altogether different labor-rate from his counterpart back in Poland.

That is what the kerfuffle regarding the Bolkenstien Services Directive was all about. Services are "fungible" meaning some of them can easily be exported to be done elsewhere. But, a great many are also local and not exportable. (I don't know anyone going to Budapest for a haircut.)

And Europe has not yet got the Services Directive quite right. It is important to do so. I may need badly a plumber or a mason, but in the transformation of our economies from the Industrial to the Information Age, more jobs will be created in the services sector than elsewhere.

Brawn is of diminishing importance to a dynamic developed economy and it should be made available from the least expensive source.

[workforall]

send some bulgrian workmen i'll be happy to ve them.

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