Now that we are all bundled inside, let's shut the door

摘要

Galen, that great second-century physician, observed "Triste est omne animal post coitum". He might have been reflecting on the mood of the European Union a year after it embraced ten new members, eight of them from central Europe. Most of the newcomers affect a ho-hum indifference to membership now that they have it—even though they worked furiously to get it. The older members ponder, with varying degrees of anxiety, the low tax rates and the even lower wages which most of the new countries have brought with them into the single market. The new members' singular lack of jubilation might suggest that this latest enlargement, the biggest by far in the Union's history, has been something of a let-down. "We have accepted the dictatorship of Tesco," grumbles Vladimir Zelezny, a Eurosceptic Czech member of the European Parliament.