January 2007: Bulgaria and Romania in EU

[Sir Og]

Vetty what is the stuation with corruption in Croatia.
I am curious if you have eny idea if it is about the same, more or less than Bul/Rom and what is your basis for comparison.

[Sir Og]

BTW I personaly plan to visit the UK as a tourist. So I will be pouring money into the economy instead of "stealing" jobs.

And as someone already mentioned the UK is not such a popular destination for poor Bulgarians to seek low paying jobs in awful conditions.

[Datajack Franit]

Here in Italy we have so many problems with eastern Europe immigrants that most people coming from Romania pretend having another nationality when asked. Like me and my mother, who refuses to have any kind of contact with them.

Romanians are well known for being related to gang-rapes of young girls and armed assaults of mansions in the rich cities of the North, eventually torturing/killing some of the owners. I honestly say it is impossible to read a newspaper without reading some kind of crime committed by one of them every day.

[Fake Boris]

It is indeed rather impossible to read a newspaper without report of crimes being commited.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
racism

idiotism and self-destruction

[Fake Boris]

Italians in Italy commit so many crimes. Let's expel them!!!

[Heresson]

Italia for Poles

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Heresson


You forgot Turkey

It will have to fill the Bosphorus first

[CerberusIV]

If anything I'm worried about driving standards in Romania and Bulgaria. There hasn't been a big crime problem with the last round of eastern european migrants here in Ireland. There have been quite a few assaults and murders reported in the media but virtually all are Lithuanians killing other Lithuanians.

Economically the migrants work in jobs many Irish won't take, particularly hotels and catering, and do help the economy. The problem area is that they can't drive. Irish drivers are bad enough at driving into ditches at 3.00am and killing themselves but many eastern europeans here can't cope with the road conditions. More worryingly, if one hits you, their 3rd party insurance cover (certainly for those insured back in Poland) is around 1/10th of the amount an Irish motor insurance policy would provide.

[Sir Og]

This might be because you drive on the wrong side of the road.

[VetLegion]

Italia for Poles

Italy has a big problem with immigrant crime, newspapers here sometimes carry the stories. That stuff about intercepting couples, beating the guy and raping the girl is terrible. I thought the accused were Albanians or Romanians, I don't remember. I've heard about Poles in Italy on TV recently, they seem work as slave labour on southern plantations and Sicily

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Sir Og
Vetty what is the stuation with corruption in Croatia.
I am curious if you have eny idea if it is about the same, more or less than Bul/Rom and what is your basis for comparison.

We're pretty damn corrupt. Recently a doctor was caught asking 5000 Euros for arranging for someone to move to the front of the waiting line for an operation. Who knows how many go uncaught? That pisses me off

I can't compare with Bulgaria from personal expirience (I've never been to your country), but Croatian papers whine about you getting into EU before us so they make a point of describing you as being in worse shape than us in any parameter imaginable

[Sir Og]

This is what I suspected.

The problem is that it is very hard to measure something like corruptiuon. I am very sceptical when I hear reports that compare corruption between countries.
I know that there is plenty of corruption in Bulgaria but I am sure that there is just as much corruption in some EU countries.

[VetLegion]

Actually, agencies don't measure corruption, they measure perception of corruption which is not the same thing, but at least it can be measured. Theoretically, it could be argued that some country can have low perception of corruption but high corruption, or high perception of corruption but low corruption, but it isn't likely if you ask me. That is why I don't dismiss those estimates.

[Gangerolf]

Croatia isn't any "worse" than Bulgaria or Romania. Some would even say "better".
But it has taken a bit longer to get started on entry negotiations because of that whole war crime tribunal affair?