Eastern European nations turn back on EU's Single Market

[Tommi]

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/...eastern-rebels

To quote what I have issues with:

In Bulgaria, the European Commission launched an infringement proceeding last year after the country passed a law declaring investors should be resident for more than five years before they can buy farmland.

And the country continues to impose laws which, along with other tough criteria, effectively mean anyone hoping to buy land in Poland must have been resident for a decade.

Why shouldn't a country be allowed to determine who can buy land? Why should EU be allowed to say they can't?

Europe is facing a land rush, where multinational companies and hedge funds are heavily investing in land either for purely industrial or speculative purposes, making this resource less and less accessible for young farmers.

This shouldn't be allowed at all. Land should belong to the country it's part of, not for the EU to decide who can get it or not.

[Deamon002]

Oh look, the Express. In the trash it goes.

[Deleted]

A British tabloid. This truly is a reliable and unbiased source for information that will lead to highly interesting debate.

It is right up their along with other great unbiased media sources. Like the Daily Mail, Russia Today, Info Wars, Breitbart, the Sun and the Stormfront forums. /s

[Berengil]

I congratulate those nations on asserting their economic sovereignty. The peoples and nations of Eastern Europe understand very well what it is like to live under the thumb of a self-assured, self-righteous bureaucracy. They tossed off one in the early 90s just to assume another? Not likely.

[Mayhem]

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/...eastern-rebels

To quote what I have issues with:

Well good that you voted leave then.

Why shouldn't a country be allowed to determine who can buy land? Why should EU be allowed to say they can't?

Because of the four freedoms:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/politi...European-Union

This shouldn't be allowed at all. Land should belong to the country it's part of, not for the EU to decide who can get it or not.

It depends, are those multinational companies from within the EU, then it is allowed, are they from outside of the EU then each country can make up rules/laws as they see fit.

[Deleted]

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/...eastern-rebels

To quote what I have issues with:





Why shouldn't a country be allowed to determine who can buy land? Why should EU be allowed to say they can't?




This shouldn't be allowed at all. Land should belong to the country it's part of, not for the EU to decide who can get it or not.

Oh that's old news, and now it will become even more anti-EU since the new president is left-wing nationalist former air-force colonel and the new goverment is full of right-wing nationalist parties like IMRO for example.

[Krille]

Polish workers have benefitted a lot from the free movement of workers between countries within the EU. They wouldnt be too happy with giving that up, that's just my thought about this. Bulgaria? Who cares.

[Deleted]

A slightly better source:

http://www.politico.eu/article/easte...single-market/

The EU’s newest members are the fiercest opponents of its single market.

As with so many of the toughest fights in Brussels, it all boils down to farmers and food.

Central Europeans say big Western European landowners and multinational supermarkets are wiping out their farmers and shopkeepers. Protecting smallholders from powerful investors like banks has leapt to the top of the political agenda. Eastern European governments have rolled out a complex web of new laws to stop foreigners buying out swaths of ultra-cheap farmland.

The European Commission regards this new legislation in the former communist countries as an existential threat to the EU’s free flow of goods, people and capital — the single market, in short — and struck back with infringement cases intended to preserve its sanctity.

In Bulgaria, for example, the European Commission launched an infringement proceeding last year over a law that investors should be resident for more than five years before they can buy farmland. In Romania, Brussels objected this year to rules that supermarkets should source 51 percent of fresh produce from local suppliers. There has been no decision on either case.

It is in Poland, the regional heavyweight, that the battle over respect for the single market is fought the hardest. Brussels has already ordered the authorities to halt a tax on the retail sector on the grounds it grants a selective advantage to small, local shops with a low turnover over big foreign-owned supermarkets. All eyes are now focusing on how the European Commission will react to a growing chorus of complaints in Poland over the rights of foreigners to buy farmland.
Bye-bye Babinek?

For French farmer Stéphane Gerard, Poland’s restrictions on land ownership are now threatening a 16-year love affair with the small village of Babinek in the country’s northwest.

In 2001, when he was 23 years old, Gerard took out a lease on 1,000 hectares to grow sugar beet, potatoes, oilseed rape, maize and wheat on a picturesque estate in West Pomerania. He hired 12 Polish families, supported the conservation of partridges and invested large sums in heavy machinery.

His ambition was to buy the land and settle there with his family. He said he understood the local authorities’ desire to protect local smallholders but argued the new restrictions on foreign ownership that were imposed by the Polish government last year failed to consider the contribution he was making.

The fight over land has kicked off after the expiry of a series of transitional agreements across Central Europe that ended between 2014 and 2016.

“For several months, I have alerted numerous people. But far from making progress, the case seems to have ground to a halt or even gone backward in a way that clearly goes against European rights,” Gerard said from his Polish estate. He has since taken Poland’s Agricultural Property Agency to court and says he has become a “bête noire” for the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party.

Poland’s ambassador to France, Andrzej Byrt, wrote to Warsaw’s agriculture minister, Krzysztof Jurgiel, asking him to find a “friendly solution” so that “intensive Franco-Polish cooperation in the agricultural sector can continue.”

Gerard’s case is not unusual.

The fight over land has kicked off after the expiry of a series of transitional agreements across Central Europe that ended between 2014 and 2016. Before then, countries were allowed to impose restrictions on land acquisition but had been expected to bring their national rules in line with the EU single market.
Poland Agriculture Minister Krzysztof Jurgiel | Guillaume Souvant/AFP via Getty Images

Polish Agriculture Minister Krzysztof Jurgiel | Guillaume Souvant/AFP via Getty Images

The European Commission, however, is still worried about investor access and has opened infringement procedures against Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. Brussels has not issued a final decision in any of the cases.
Keep it Polish

Last May, Warsaw introduced legislation preventing people from buying land if the country’s Agricultural Property Agency deemed the acquisition would lead to an “excessive concentration” of farms.

Most critically, there are long residence requirements that effectively mean a land buyer must have been resident in Poland for a decade. Other conditions include holding an agriculture degree and agreeing to reside on the farm for at least five years. Individual Polish farmers also have a right of refusal on land being prospected in their neighborhood. Investors argue these rules give generous leeway to the local authorities to exclude non-Poles.

“The current regulations in a host of eastern members are clearly targeted toward preferring national buyers of agricultural land over those of other EU citizens,” said Emmanuelle Mikosz, European affairs adviser for the European Landowners Organization, which represents private landowners.

A spokesperson for the Permanent Representation of Poland to the EU insisted that the country was trying to prevent speculation that had pushed land prices up as much as seven times since 2004, but was generally open for business. She said that between April 30 and December 31, 2016, Polish authorities issued 4,087 decisions (to both foreigners and Poles) on the acquisition of agricultural land, 91.3 percent of which were positive.

The spokesperson added that new laws in Poland had been introduced on the basic assumption that “land is not an ordinary commodity.”

“It was often the case that the land was sold and resold many times, while no activity or investments were seen on the land itself.”
Cheap. Not so cheerful.

It’s easy to see why the former Soviet bloc is so attractive. The average price of agricultural land in Poland — by no means the cheapest destination in Eastern Europe — was €9,481 per hectare in 2016, while prices in the Netherlands averaged €59,115 per hectare in March this year, according to official government figures.

But the land rush can lead to bad press. Large land acquisitions in Romania by Rabobank from the Netherlands sparked major media attention in late 2015 and helped fuel the anti-investor backlash.
Employees work on an organic vegetable farm in Poland | Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images

Employees work on an organic vegetable farm in Poland | Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images

“There is definitely a push [to undermine the single market], but I don’t consider it unjustified,” said Attila Szocs, a campaigner at Eco Ruralis, a rural campaign group in Romania. “Europe is facing a land rush, where multinational companies and hedge funds are heavily investing in land either for purely industrial or speculative purposes, making this resource less and less accessible for young farmers.”

Eastern Europeans have many reasons to fear that they are not getting a fair deal — one of their most common complaints is that their subsidies from the EU’s €58-billion-a-year Common Agricultural Policy have been calculated at lower levels than Western countries.

The European Commission has also laid itself open to accusations of double standards by not challenging France and Italy over behavior also traditionally seen as a threat to the single market — such as mandatory origin labels on food that are viewed as a way to boosting local French and Italian producers.

“The government is using strong nationalistic rhetoric banning land sales towards foreigners” — Attila Szocs, campaigner at Eco Ruralis

Still, Szocs pointed out that there were sometimes ambiguous motives to restrictions on foreign investors. He said Hungary’s crackdown on selling land to foreigners — partly fueled by Austrian agribusiness buying up large amounts of rural property — resulted in agricultural land being scooped up by local officials.

“There is a great political push to keep the status quo and not permit new investors,” Szocs said. “The government is using strong nationalistic rhetoric banning land sales toward foreigners.”

In a sign of the direction of the political current, MEPs have also recently noted “the positive measures taken by some member states in regulating their land markets in order to avoid speculative land transactions.”

Such political messages appear to have been heard by officials in Brussels, which suggested there could be a diplomatic solution to the battles over farms and food.

“The Commission’s services are considering the next steps to take,” a Commission spokesperson said referring to the infringement procedures. “At the same time, we are supporting member states to exchange best practices and to find solutions that comply with EU law.”

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/...eastern-rebels
This shouldn't be allowed at all. Land should belong to the country it's part of, not for the EU to decide who can get it or not.

The Commission is only enforcing EU law as it now stands. If you want it changed write your MP, MEP, get an ECI going. Be a citizen.

[Cyberowl]

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/...eastern-rebels

To quote what I have issues with:





Why shouldn't a country be allowed to determine who can buy land? Why should EU be allowed to say they can't?




This shouldn't be allowed at all. Land should belong to the country it's part of, not for the EU to decide who can get it or not.

Why? Because they signed the same treaty everyone else did. EU laws trumps national law. They knew it going in, they can fuck off anytime they want (and I actively encourage them).

[mrinvisable2]

because established corporations, big western land owners, billionaires just buys out all farmland, here in Latvia about half of farmland is owned by western owners, and on top of that they builds large animal farms that polutes our rivers/ lands and then cry when government tells them u must process ur waste/ reduce smell from farms.
there is difference between fair play and exploitation of eastern eu countries( who were cut out of capitalims for 50 years and needed to start from 0). Even our farmers cant compete to western farmers who gets twice more subsidies from their governments than ours. thats why supermarkets have to put half of produce from local producers and that doesnt even matter when u can buy tomatoes from spain/ netherlands for 2.5 eur kg compared to ours 4.5 eur kg

[Deleted]

The fact is we need a 2 speed EU or in the worst case the EU sould shrink itself back to the original founding nations Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands and get rid of Eastern Europe membership. Because right now Its all Western Europe giving and Eastern Europe taking.

We got Western funds, heading east to keep EE infrastructure up to date. While Western Workers have to fend off Eastern European Workers, and hostile EE Governments, who make Western businesses jump through hoops to invest. Something that if Western Europe did the Eastern Europeans would be screeching about discrimination.

[Deleted]

The fact is we need a 2 speed EU or in the worst case the EU sould shrink itself back to the original founding nations Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands and get rid of Eastern Europe membership. Because right now Its all Western Europe giving and Eastern Europe taking.

We got Western funds, heading east to keep EE infrastructure up to date. While Western Workers have to fend off Eastern European Workers, and hostile EE Governments, who make Western businesses jump through hoops to invest. Something that if Western Europe did the Eastern Europeans would be screeching about discrimination.

So basically ur butt-hurt EE won't let u run them over like Africa? Boohoooo! You are ruining the EU with ur delusional greedy policies.

But still it's best to split, take Swedenistan with u, ur union won't be recognizable as European soon, no reason we should follow u down the abyss.

[Deleted]

Bring Antifa to East Europe, bring muslims here. BRING THEM!

[CostinR]

The European Union is crumbling. There's a lot of tensions between the current Polish government and the European Commission and it's only growing.

[Mihalik]

Eastern Europe is not turning it's back to the single market. They just want their cake and eat it too.

[Underverse]

'Why shouldn't countries in the EU be able to do X?"

"Because they formed a contracted agreement with one another when they joined the EU."

[Deleted]

East-Europe destroying itself.

We should let them sometime. It won't take long before they're back groveling for hand-outs again.

East European should get out of EU and form a coallision with Russia. Therefore spiting on EU.
Let the west be browned hahahaha.


Anyway in an hour or so i got gym. I promise you, ill think of liberals and feel the hatred of a thousand souls on them last reps. Hell if rage gets me too much i might set my eye on a liberal at the gym there. You can actually sense if someone is a liberal, they smell of weak and low selfesteem.

There are times when i dream with my eyes open how i corner and brutalise an antifa guy. You know these skinny punks with masks. Me being at 1.97m and 105 kilograms.

Cornering that stick and just going balistic on him. After i weaken him i could jsut put my hands in his mouth and pull so hard that his jaw is ripped out with his retarded mask. I WOULD HULK ONE OF THESE FUCKS.

infracted - trolling

[Narwal]

So basically, the EU was swindling countries into joining so that you could swindle their fertile farm lands from them?

Western EU gets free low wage slave labor workers from the East.
Western EU gets to buy up all of the cheap lands of the East for their own exploitation.

It sounds more like Western EU is taking advantage of poorer Eastern EU nations. Shame on your immorality in this situation EU people!

[Underverse]

The European Union is crumbling. There's a lot of tensions between the current Polish government and the European Commission and it's only growing.

Yeah because one party controls the entire Polish government right now, and this party was elected on the basis of xenophobia. A lot of Poles despise the current government. And with a critical nationalist anti-EU loss in France (and probably Germany as well), the EU isn't going anywhere.

[GennGreymane]

Eh, countries that always had issues will continue to blame others for their misfortunes, more news at 11, GennGreymane brought to you by SLAP CHOP!