KATIE Hill, wife of the British ambassador to Bulgaria Jeremy Hill, spoke about EU diversity at the British residence in an event organised by the Bulgarian English Speaking Union on February 8.
Her views were her own and were in no way representative of the British government or any official authority, Hill said.
Hill said that despite Euro scepticism, she believed that the EU was the best mechanism achieved to date for reconciling national identity with international interdependence. One of the biggest challenges to current and future EU members in upholding their diversity, however, would be to resist uniformity and not to succumb to the forceful influence of global culture.
She said that the heterogeneous history of European countries provided fascinating and diverse backgrounds of culture, politics, language, and social life that the EU framework for national governments reinforces. The principle of subsidiary was the main guarantee that despite common legal frameworks, countries would take decisions affecting local life at the level of local government. Regulations in the areas of social care, child policy, education, health, taxation and criminal justice systems were also left to individual country members and reinforced the thriving of diversity, Hill said. This means that even though Bulgaria aims to meet European standards in the accountability of the court system to Parliament, there is no particular EU blue print for it to follow. Bulgaria can form its definitions of murder, manslaughter, robbery, and define its own processes for sentencing just as any other EU country, Hill said.
The variety of policies that the EU allows results in diversity of economic and social models. This diversity was most manifest in terms of GDP levels within the EU, which range from $53 000 per capita a year for Ireland, to $7 500 per capita a year for Lithuania. “If Bulgaria and Romania were currently members, they would hold the lowest two positions respectively - Bulgaria’s GDP per capita is $3 900 year, not even 10 percent of Ireland’s rate,” Hill said.
The desire to overcome strong economic competition coming from countries like China and India, would lead to pressure for GDP levels to converge by 2013. This would not impact diversity, Hill said, and pointed to Ireland, whose increased wealth increased the diversity of the country. Ireland had moved from being one of the lowest GDP per capita countries to the top GDP place. Among measures taken to achieve this were opening employment opportunities to migrants from new member states, using up its structural funds, diversifying rural tourism, and using job creation schemes to cope with migration from the country to the town. The latter was a problem not only in Bulgaria but also for countries across Europe, Hill said. Among solutions were improving infrastructure, creating investment zones, recycling crops, and encouraging rural tourism and alternative land use.
In order to further support EU economic self-sustainability, EU countries should open their borders for economic migrants in order to diversify its skills base, Hill said. Contrary to immigration fears, statistics revealed that only two to three million citizens from new members states would relocate to old EU countries by 2020, Hill said. A typical economic migrant would usually be young, single, well-educated, and multilingual, statistics also showed.
Political diversity allowed within the EU was also ample, Hill said. EU countries can hold joint allegiances to EU and NATO. The EU also does not force political harmonisation across the board in EU issues, but a “pick and choose approach to issues”. An example of the latter was the opt-out clauses for membership to the euro and Schengen, Hill said.
Smaller EU countries would not lose their voice on entering the EU. The reason was that voting power in European councils is not determined by population size, which balances population-based voting in the EU parliament, Hill said.
EU cultural diversity mechanisms are also very strong, Hill said. This was so because of improved access to information, greater travel opportunities and availability of translated literature, journals, and festivals.
To avoid thinking of the EU as a cultural threat, however, Bulgarians should try to answer how they would identify themselves. “As Europeans? And if so, what sort - central, Slavic or general (ubiquitous) Europeans or very separate Europeans from their immediate neighbours? And how much is this prone to change over time? And can they perceive two identities running in tandem - a Bulgarian identity and a European identity?” Hill said.
Smaller nations seem to be disproportionately strong in maintaining their cultural diversity, Hill said in conclusion. As such, Bulgaria was as highly non-conformist about the “European” as all other EU nations, Hill said. “Even if the EU ceases to exist in 100 or 500 years time,” she said, “it is hard to conceive of its members losing their places in shaping our diverse culture, politics or history.”
