Slovakia is a cleaner, fairer, better place to live – all because of Europe. (anti-Brexit article)
In the spring of 1990 during my first trip to London, I was surprised to find that there was no heating in my hotel room, and separate taps for hot and cold water. Having grown up on British literature, I made the following conclusion: given that a Briton’s purpose in life was to combat evil and make the world a better place, they probably despised personal comfort, as it would only weaken their noble pursuits.
Naive as it sounds, such a conception of Britishness was widely shared – in different variants – by many nationals of central Europe, including Slovaks. The UK was part of our idealised notion of the west. The “west” that helped us defeat communism in 1989 and then extended the opportunity to improve our own lot.
In 2016, it is fashionable to speak of the failure of the west, and more specifically that of the European Union. Slovakia, however, is a vivid testament to the ways in which the EU has improved the lives of its citizens over the past 25 years. Those more tangible elements of change pertain to money and public space: effects range from new highways through refurbished town squares to schools, parks and playgrounds. All these places bear a sign informing you that they were built thanks to EU structural and cohesion funds. You are reminded of the EU’s omnipresence by the ubiquitous blue flags that hang from town-hall facades in villages across the country.
European funds helped clean up our rivers and our air. EU farming subsidies restored the country’s romantic combination of wild meadows and pastures with grazing sheep. For those of us who remember Slovakia’s countryside in the communist days it is almost a miracle: back then, rivers flowing through beautiful mountains were muddy and filled with poison, our cities covered with smog.
READ MORE:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/02/slovakia-cleaner-fairer-better-eu-membership?CMP=share_btn_fb
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