I have been following the situation in eastern Europe for a while now and I'm seeing a very dangerous trend. Ultimately the in-depth expansion into post warsaw pact countries has led to insane strain on EU. I am sure that if it was not for that expansion - UK would still be in the EU. Now we have further issues, not only countries like Poland and Hungary are insane beneficiaries of EU funding - they are also turning away from EU values towards far right.
So far not a single post warsaw pact country is a net beneficiary to the Eu budget. Poland takes out more money out of EU budget than UK used to contribute (2nd largest contribution).
What did we receive in return? I'm not sure. Some could say we created buffer zone against Russia. However, the evidence points that all we did is solidify Putins position in Russia as result of these actions. We completely lost Russian population with the Ukrainian crisis. Almost 7 years since their 'revolution' Ukraine became a fine example to regular Russian why Putin is good.
At the time of euro-maidan, we had signed an agreement between opposition/yanukovich/russia/EU that Yanukovich was leaving in 10 months for elections. Shortly afterwards, the far right nationalist groups stormed parliament and overthrew the government. The first law they attempted to pass (was vetoed) was to ban Russian language. Shortly afterwards they passed the association with EU. All of this was done BEFORE elections, it was very stupid of EU to support any of these actions. While many of us in west paid little attention - this was widely broadcast in Russia. And it did not have a good effect in eyes of regular Russian. What happend for years after that was even worse, with more and more of 'putins propaganda' becoming true.
Now we have Belarus going on the same path, with huge support from eastern EU countries like Poland, Lithuania. Belarus has all the recipe to even become worse than Ukraine as result of 'pro-eu' revolution, due to how badly EU-association will affect their russia-tied economy, that has non eu compatible industry. This will further solidify Putins and his followers positions. The propaganda machine in Russia is painting an image of us against all picture. The regular Russian is believing this more and more by the day.
So ultimately as of now we have a situation where eastern EU is sucking out money from west, is turning hard right and as result putting undue strain on EU organization as whole. If Brexit is a success, the EU project will most likely fall apart into pieces.
Moreover, we managed to turn Russian population extremely hostile to the west where at this rate I'm sure Putin or his follower will be able to sell an idea that they should roll tanks into Europe to protect themselves.
In the end, it seems expansion policy into the East has possibly cost the existence of European Union and possibly paved way for another war on the continent in the future. On top of it all, it created a situation where in an event that UK thrives post brexit - the whole stability of European continent could possibly be under the question.
So far not a single post warsaw pact country is a net beneficiary to the Eu budget. Poland takes out more money out of EU budget than UK used to contribute (2nd largest contribution).
What did we receive in return? I'm not sure. Some could say we created buffer zone against Russia. However, the evidence points that all we did is solidify Putins position in Russia as result of these actions. We completely lost Russian population with the Ukrainian crisis. Almost 7 years since their 'revolution' Ukraine became a fine example to regular Russian why Putin is good.
At the time of euro-maidan, we had signed an agreement between opposition/yanukovich/russia/EU that Yanukovich was leaving in 10 months for elections. Shortly afterwards, the far right nationalist groups stormed parliament and overthrew the government. The first law they attempted to pass (was vetoed) was to ban Russian language. Shortly afterwards they passed the association with EU. All of this was done BEFORE elections, it was very stupid of EU to support any of these actions. While many of us in west paid little attention - this was widely broadcast in Russia. And it did not have a good effect in eyes of regular Russian. What happend for years after that was even worse, with more and more of 'putins propaganda' becoming true.
So ultimately as of now we have a situation where eastern EU is sucking out money from west, is turning hard right and as result putting undue strain on EU organization as whole. If Brexit is a success, the EU project will most likely fall apart into pieces.
Moreover, we managed to turn Russian population extremely hostile to the west where at this rate I'm sure Putin or his follower will be able to sell an idea that they should roll tanks into Europe to protect themselves.
In the end, it seems expansion policy into the East has possibly cost the existence of European Union and possibly paved way for another war on the continent in the future. On top of it all, it created a situation where in an event that UK thrives post brexit - the whole stability of European continent could possibly be under the question.
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