FOUR FREEDOMS: A LETTER TO THE ECONOMIST (May 2, 2011)
As you point out, another of the two grandest integration projects in the European Union is in trouble: first the euro and now Schengen (“Another Project in Trouble,” April 30, 2011). But I am confused when you argue that the single market is yet another among the Union’s greatest achievements. Here you cite the vaunted “four freedoms,” concerning the freedom of movement of “people, goods, services, and capital,” and in that order. In the very same article you mention rather bluntly that Germany and Austria are about to remove restrictions on workers from ten mainly Eastern European member countries that entered the Union in 2004, whereas workers from Romania and Bulgaria, which entered in 2007, will face restrictions in both Germany and Austria through 2014. As a matter of fact, only capital now moves freely across the Union’s borders, followed by services and goods. People come last, if they come at all. The single market is still a pipedream for millions of people, and Schengen troubles are thus hardly new to most of them. Instead of four freedoms, you should be a bit more blunt about two and a half of them at most.