Final Word from Tuesday, September 20, 2016
For seven weeks prior to the Bratislava summit, PM Bohuslav Sobotka trumpeted his idea of reducing the wage differential between old and new EU member states. Let's pretend for a moment that he was serious about helping the people and wasn't mainly trying to win more EU subsidies for ČSSD a.s. How would he achieve faster wage convergence? By forcing companies in CEE to pay more, or companies in Western Europe to pay less? By imposing an EU-wide minimum wage? Or by magically increasing the overall prosperity of the east through EU social engineering? Most Czechs are content to have a lower wage level as long as they have better living conditions, otherwise more of them would be working in Germany. Through EU social engineering, Sobotka would make the CR more attractive mainly for refugees. This would please Angela Merkel, to be sure, but few Czechs would consider it an improvement in their living conditions. [Czech Republic Central and Eastern Europe European Union]
Glossary of difficult words
to trumpet - to proclaim widely or loudly;
differential - a difference between amounts of things;
convergence - the act or process of moving toward union or uniformity;
content - willing to accept something; satisfied.