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The curious thing of this “new” movement is precisely that it is not only aimed at people coming from countries outside Europe but also from other parts of Europe.
Sometimes it is just ridiculous. Italian city Lucca has ordered that all restaurants should have an Italian decoration, waiters should wear elegant clothes and speak English and (the important thing) they should serve Italian food. While the first requirements weren’t very much disputed, the latter has caused a lot of criticism. The opposition has even considered this as “meal racism”, or “racism considering that the restaurants that are going to be closed serve non-Italian meals”. Of course, the mere consideration from a etimological point of view of “meals/cooking’s racism” is just a total absurd. But the real thing is that the opposition is worried mainly about the Turkish döner kebabs but not about French, Spanish or Hindu restaurants, which normally tend to be owned by Italians, or about McDonalds or Burger King’s which are also included in the measure
Meanwhile, in Great Britain the situation is not as “ridiculous” but rather is much more worrying. Expat Yank points out the real problem:
Absolutely disgraceful reporting on the part of the Beeb. For as of that 11:10 report, nowhere in that piece is it made clear that those “overseas” and “foreign” workers are Italian EU nationals. Nor was it mentioned in yesterday’s initial piece. Nor is it gently pointed out that the protesting British workers themselves clearly don’t understand that those Italians have as much right to those jobs as do Britons.
What happens? A part of an oil refinery was being constructed, work which was won by IREM, an Italian-based contractor, which brought in its own workforce. So the workers from the Oil Refinery, even if no redundacy was going to be caused by those Italians, went on an unofficial strike. They can’t understand that, under European Union regulations, European citizens, can move throughout the territory of the EU, without restraint, to work.
But the worrying thing is that the BBC, paid by the British taxpayer and under the Government’s supervision, precisely attacks this idea of free movement. The double standard is so worrying that, after the BBC has been reporting in a “italians-are-stealing-British-jobs” mode, Gordon Brown can afterwards say this:
Brown Warns Global Economy Is Slipping into Financial Protectionism
to afterwards saying:
what we’ve got to do over time, as I’ve always said, is that where there are jobs in this country, we need people with the skills, developed in this country”…
In Spain, we have a similar problem. Spanish Industry Minister, Miguel Sebastian, said that we should buy “Spanish products”, to help Spanish producers. So a journalist asked Zapatero if he supported that. As he was in a press conference with Portuguese Primer Minister, our cosmic leader from the Alliance of Civlizations President answered “I chose the ibéricos“, referring to both Spanish and Portuguese products, but not taking into account that in Spain that expression refers to this.
But the problem is aggravated by the influence of the Autonomous Communities. After financing an association which sends letters to firms menacing them with fines in case they don’t write commercial signs in Galician, and after Galician President, Touriño, has spent huge quantities of money in highly luxurious items (nearly €4 million in the reform of three meeting rooms, €26.284 in a table; €2.269 for each chair he bought; €170.212 in the windows of another room and €480.000 in an official car), his Vicepresident, Galician independentist Anxo Quitana, has asked the people to buy Galician products. Why don’t you lower the taxes to help those “producers”??
So the question is: are we really for a globalised economy with the natural competitiveness that it brings or rather are we going to go back to old protectionism? The economical crisis is going to point out which direction we are taking. But seeing President Obama calling for “Buy American products” is not a really good sign.
Tags: Anxo Quintana, BBC, Galicia, Gordon Brown, Great Britain, Italy, Miguel Sebastián, MSM, Obama, Spain, Touriño, USA, Zapatero
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