Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-04-Speech-2-090"
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"en.20060404.7.2-090"2
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"Mr President, 1 May 2004 is a day that I shall always remember. On that day, I stood, together with Dr Otto von Habsburg, on the border between Slovenia and Austria and took part in a solemn ceremony. What was being celebrated was the fact that, as Slovenia became a member of the EU, a town that had undergone a post-war division into two parts – one of which came to belong to Austria and the other to Slovenia – was now being reunited.
The symbolism was clear and, standing there, I felt strongly that people did not feel that they were entering something new but felt that they were being reunited with something of which they had always been a part. That, moreover, is the way things are. The EU’s ten new Member States are ten old countries of Europe. It is just that Communism had kidnapped them for 50 years, and now they are finally reunited with us.
In the run-up to this reunification, Sweden’s Social Democrats had painted horrific pictures of how our country would be invaded by foreign workers who would dump our wages and exploit our social benefits. I and my party fought in the Swedish Parliament to prevent our country from introducing transitional rules. We wanted the new countries, which had for so long suffered under Communism, now to enjoy the freedoms brought about by EU membership.
We refused to accept the Social Democrats’ propaganda and demonstrated the nature of real solidarity. We won the battle, and Sweden never introduced any transitional rules. Evaluations carried out now show unambiguously that Sweden has not in the least been exposed to the social dumping invoked by the Social Democrats as a scare tactic. Instead, freedom of movement has only had positive effects on the Swedish economy. The other countries that did not introduce transitional rules have also had the same experience.
I have to say, moreover, that it was with great disappointment that I learned of several countries’ decision to extend their transitional rules. To do so when the scenarios invoked did not materialise is unreasonable. The only correct thing to do is to refrain from introducing transitional rules, and I hope that, in future, Europe will be influenced more by reason than by fear."@en1
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