Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-30-Speech-3-109-000"
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"en.20111130.15.3-109-000"2
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"Madam President, I recently visited Croatia; I wanted to find out whether a proper national debate was going on, whether there was a fair campaign. What did I find? Well I found that the EU is doing everything it can to bribe the political class in Croatia. Doing it quite well too. Already the EU has given EUR 320 million to Croatia in what is called pre-accession aid; the EU has just spent a million euros on a blatant propaganda advertising campaign telling Croatia that the EU is their only hope.
Cleverly, you have even given jobs to Croatians – highly paid jobs to Croatians in the European Parliament and in the European Commission – just to show them how well off they – the ruling class – will be if they join. And you have got EU flags flying on official buildings all over the country, to give the impression that it is a done deal. You have some willing helpers because the old Communists are still there in Croatia. They still hold all the positions of power and they will all become personally enormously wealthy if Croatia joins the European Union.
There is an even more sinister side to this because there is not a free press in Croatia. There is no national debate going on at all. Indeed a prize has been offered – HRK 10 000 – if anybody can find an article in any Croatian newspaper suggesting that joining is not the right thing to do.
The whole campaign is bent, corrupt and distorted. We have seen this before from the European Union, but I think it is happening on a scale in Croatia that is worse than I have seen before. This country has for nearly a thousand years sought independence and for 20 years they have had independence. They got out of the failed political experiment that was Yugoslavia. If they vote to join the European Union, they are voting to rejoin a new Yugoslavia, a failing political experiment that will implode. I hope there is, in the last month or two, a debate in Croatia. Sadly, I doubt it."@en1
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