Wednesday 25 March 2009

Words of Wisdom from FT

‘Financial Times’ Slates Greek, Slovene Tactics :: BalkanInsight.com

I was glad to read the summary of an article, published by the Financial Times (FT). The article is about the current members of EU using their membership as a lever to pressure the neighbors that are not (yet) members of the Union. Finally someone turns focus on these unethical practises. The reason such a bullying behavior is tolerated is the legislation of the EU. These countries - Slovenia and Greece - have been using such a system to take advantage over their neighbors Croatia and Macedonia. Never minding that there were provocations on the other side, these issues can not be the reason to block the accession of the mentioned countries to the EU.
The conclusion FT makes is that the price for stalling the progress of the accession for the Balkan countries could cost Europe more if the affected countries receive a wrong message. As stated,
“The Balkans and Turkey are politically fragile economically vulnerable but strategically important parts of Europe."

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