Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-12-Speech-2-075"
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"en.20061212.12.2-075"2
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"Mr President, today we are being asked to approve the nomination of European Commissioners from Bulgaria and Romania. Well, I do not approve. I voted against the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, as did many of my colleagues from the IND/DEM Group.
My colleagues and I from the UK Independence Party were vilified in 2004 because we opposed the accession, but we did so for several reasons, not least that we are totally opposed to the European Union’s empire-building because it is a thoroughly undemocratic organisation that undermines self-government. We also voted against it because we knew that there would be mass migration from some of the new Member States to Britain – a mass migration with which my country’s infrastructure cannot cope. Two years later we have been shown to be right: an estimated 650 000 people came to Britain from the accession countries during the first year of membership. Furthermore, such has been the drain of skilled workers, that we now have the ridiculous situation in which the President of Poland is putting out statements calling for his fellow countrymen to return to their homeland.
Will the EU empire-builders ever consider the immense social cost of their actions? We now stand at the cusp of a tragedy: two further countries, which have recently thrown off the yoke of communism and grasped their freedom, are about to throw it away by taking on the yoke of Brussels, with all its suffocating bureaucracy and its relentless pursuit of power. It will not be many years before Bulgaria and Romania discover what a mistake they have made in subjecting themselves to the will of an intolerant European Commission. It will be like exchanging an iron curtain for a vast curtain of paper, which could end up being almost as big a threat to civil liberties and prosperity as was its predecessor.
Freedom is indivisible. It should never be given up in the pursuit of economic gain, particularly when it has been won at such a high price."@en1
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