Because a lot of our population are senile old farts yarning for the “good old days”. Even tho those good old days were a fake sense of stability payed for by the unsustainable economy of the USSR where citizens were a glorified serfs.
Because of reasons.
Because people don’t know what to look for. And because people prefer for it to not be true.
I have a cousin who hates the EU, but he works for a company that builds roads with european subsidies. He doesn’t even realize from where the money for the roads is coming.
Because we’re a stupid nation. Nothing more to say
‘Cause a lot of people are dumb as fuck and are as familiar with economy, development, projects and so on as a donkey with a space program.
Мога да кажа АЗ какви ползи съм имал. А именно – право на студентски заем от ~30К паунда. Ez life.
Same salary as Serbia.
Look at Greeeeeeeeeeeece ahahahahahahahahhahaha pathetic wastes of space and air.
Most interesting is the 12% who don’t know.
Because Bulgarians are the smartest nation on Earth. (According to Bulgarians)
Because most of the population doesn’t understand that a big chunk of our GDP is from EU loans and that most of these EU loans go in the pocket of corrupted officials and their cohorts.
Because they don’t know what will happen if we are not in the EU
Hating the EU and the Western world as a whole has been pretty common in Bulgaria because of four main reasons.
1. Our mentality. From a young age we are taught that authorities want to take advantage of us and they are to blame for our poor situation. The EU is a convenient scapegoat – they steal our young people, our resources, etc.
2. A big chunk of the population is traditionalist/conservative. They do not like the “culture” brought in from the West and actually believe that our culture and therefore nation is superior. This leads to dislike and distrust towards the EU.
3. Russian propaganda. Russian propaganda takes advantage of the previous 2 points and adds Bulgarians’ love for Russia. Especially in Facebook, you can see many groups constantly badmouthing the West while either glorifying or ignoring Russia, even though the two sides are not that different, for example, when it comes to Covid-19 measures.
4. Nationalists, currently being exploited by Revival, believe that we do not need to be subservient to anyone and we are much better off not being part of any big union. This aligns with point 1 and the belief that any international organization either exploits the smaller national states or corrupts them.
The EU doesn’t communicate enough and when it does, it usually comes off as (and is) elitist and condescending. Most people don’t understand what the EU market and its sheer size do for our economy. In the meantime there’s more than enough well-crafted, well-funded, and varied anti-EU propaganda reaching us, be it via legitimate sources, WordPress “news sites”, Facebook, word-of-mouth, and so on, and so forth through every possible channel.
Also the EU has different priorities to us. Look at the green deal and expansionary monetary policy for example. We have 22% of our population living under the poverty line. They will now see their expenses rise significantly due to the rising prices of both consumer goods and power. You wouldn’t prioritize the environment when your kids are going to bed hungry, yet this is exactly what the EU has done, at least as portrayed by anti-EU propaganda. It’s pretty hard to hold a favourable view of a system that would do this.
There’s also an issue of EU funds being misappropriated, lining the pockets of immoral actors, instead of empowering our market and those within it. Bulgaria is now the poorest member of the union, with rampant corruption, and that’s hard to swallow.
If the EU doesn’t recognize what it is dealing with and doesn’t do better in terms of representation and communication, especially now that the 2024 elections are just around the corner, It will fall apart in my opinion.
The most benefited the politicians, and since we are small country, 60% is close to to the bulgarians used to exploit eu funds.
If it we stop sending grandma money from the U.S. she would die from starvation. She can’t survive on her retirement income, and that’s after 40 years of work, 35 of them as an accountant, 10 of which she was a chief accounting officer. Bulgaria joining the EU has meant dick to her. However, I see improvement since joining.
ONLY 54% of Austrians are saying the same? This is the more important fact and raises the question, how come? It should be satisfied and Pro-EU if we consider it less corrupt, so EU money was spent wiser etc. But no, it’s the opposite, another reason for Bulgaria to leave the EU.
I would say that the problem is three fold:
1: There is a significant proportion of Bulgarian population that still remember the “Good old days of Bai Tosho”. The reason why they are still so loyal to this failed system is because they were exposed to propaganda targeted towards younger people (now older generation) and they felt as a valuable part of the system. The Government these days are super keen on increasing pension payouts (nothing against it) and less towards increasing salary/benefits for the younger working force. Younger people just don’t feel appreciated by the local government which feels to be controlled by EU.
2: Corruption is rampant and little is being done to eradicate it. However despite this every new government makes it a priority to clean the system and once they are in power, they engage in revenge politics rather than pass any useful legislation that would actually bring us upto EU standards. Bulgarians don’t see much of a involvement from EU in this situation sphere.
3: Second class Europe: This according to me is totally EU’s fault. The EU politics is all about equality and Solidarity as long as we are talking about the Benelux nations. Bulgaria and Romania has been constantly vetoed out of Schengen by countries like Netherlands which uses stupid excuses like rule of law CVM monitoring (not supposed to be associated with the decision) and no one seems to be saying anything. However when Bulgaria vetoes North Macedonia accession due to genuine dispute, Bulgaria gets pressured by the same countries. Overall Bulgarians do feel like a second class citizens of the Union.
60 е прекалено много
The other 40% don’t understand neither the question, nor the answer.
The other 40% already left
Not sure about everyone, and I am living in USA atm, but here are my 2 cents.
First off, I think the EU is great. Especially their treatment and protections for their citizens compared to US. However, there are some things that have been made worse imo. The biggest being food. I left BG in 2002, 5 years before BG joined the EU. At the time, the bread was amazing. It was traditional Rhodope bread. Now, most of the bread sold there is processed crap barely any better than here in the US. That was one of the first changes, but much of the other food choices have followed suit. Last time I visited was July 2021, and I noticed that the ice cream was no longer as creamy and flavorful as before. It tasted like american ice cream – of sugar and nothing else. It didn’t even have the creaminess I loved so much. The ice cream wasn’t that bad in 2016. The кашкавал seems worse too, and more and more things are being sweetened woth HFCS. That’s definitely worse than how it was when I was growing up. It seems to me that all this started changing when we joined the EU.
24 comments
Source: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2612
Because a lot of our population are senile old farts yarning for the “good old days”. Even tho those good old days were a fake sense of stability payed for by the unsustainable economy of the USSR where citizens were a glorified serfs.
Because of reasons.
Because people don’t know what to look for. And because people prefer for it to not be true.
I have a cousin who hates the EU, but he works for a company that builds roads with european subsidies. He doesn’t even realize from where the money for the roads is coming.
Because we’re a stupid nation. Nothing more to say
‘Cause a lot of people are dumb as fuck and are as familiar with economy, development, projects and so on as a donkey with a space program.
Мога да кажа АЗ какви ползи съм имал. А именно – право на студентски заем от ~30К паунда. Ez life.
Same salary as Serbia.
Look at Greeeeeeeeeeeece ahahahahahahahahhahaha pathetic wastes of space and air.
Most interesting is the 12% who don’t know.
Because Bulgarians are the smartest nation on Earth. (According to Bulgarians)
Because most of the population doesn’t understand that a big chunk of our GDP is from EU loans and that most of these EU loans go in the pocket of corrupted officials and their cohorts.
Because they don’t know what will happen if we are not in the EU
Hating the EU and the Western world as a whole has been pretty common in Bulgaria because of four main reasons.
1. Our mentality. From a young age we are taught that authorities want to take advantage of us and they are to blame for our poor situation. The EU is a convenient scapegoat – they steal our young people, our resources, etc.
2. A big chunk of the population is traditionalist/conservative. They do not like the “culture” brought in from the West and actually believe that our culture and therefore nation is superior. This leads to dislike and distrust towards the EU.
3. Russian propaganda. Russian propaganda takes advantage of the previous 2 points and adds Bulgarians’ love for Russia. Especially in Facebook, you can see many groups constantly badmouthing the West while either glorifying or ignoring Russia, even though the two sides are not that different, for example, when it comes to Covid-19 measures.
4. Nationalists, currently being exploited by Revival, believe that we do not need to be subservient to anyone and we are much better off not being part of any big union. This aligns with point 1 and the belief that any international organization either exploits the smaller national states or corrupts them.
The EU doesn’t communicate enough and when it does, it usually comes off as (and is) elitist and condescending. Most people don’t understand what the EU market and its sheer size do for our economy. In the meantime there’s more than enough well-crafted, well-funded, and varied anti-EU propaganda reaching us, be it via legitimate sources, WordPress “news sites”, Facebook, word-of-mouth, and so on, and so forth through every possible channel.
Also the EU has different priorities to us. Look at the green deal and expansionary monetary policy for example. We have 22% of our population living under the poverty line. They will now see their expenses rise significantly due to the rising prices of both consumer goods and power. You wouldn’t prioritize the environment when your kids are going to bed hungry, yet this is exactly what the EU has done, at least as portrayed by anti-EU propaganda. It’s pretty hard to hold a favourable view of a system that would do this.
There’s also an issue of EU funds being misappropriated, lining the pockets of immoral actors, instead of empowering our market and those within it. Bulgaria is now the poorest member of the union, with rampant corruption, and that’s hard to swallow.
If the EU doesn’t recognize what it is dealing with and doesn’t do better in terms of representation and communication, especially now that the 2024 elections are just around the corner, It will fall apart in my opinion.
The most benefited the politicians, and since we are small country, 60% is close to to the bulgarians used to exploit eu funds.
If it we stop sending grandma money from the U.S. she would die from starvation. She can’t survive on her retirement income, and that’s after 40 years of work, 35 of them as an accountant, 10 of which she was a chief accounting officer. Bulgaria joining the EU has meant dick to her. However, I see improvement since joining.
ONLY 54% of Austrians are saying the same? This is the more important fact and raises the question, how come? It should be satisfied and Pro-EU if we consider it less corrupt, so EU money was spent wiser etc. But no, it’s the opposite, another reason for Bulgaria to leave the EU.
I would say that the problem is three fold:
1: There is a significant proportion of Bulgarian population that still remember the “Good old days of Bai Tosho”. The reason why they are still so loyal to this failed system is because they were exposed to propaganda targeted towards younger people (now older generation) and they felt as a valuable part of the system. The Government these days are super keen on increasing pension payouts (nothing against it) and less towards increasing salary/benefits for the younger working force. Younger people just don’t feel appreciated by the local government which feels to be controlled by EU.
2: Corruption is rampant and little is being done to eradicate it. However despite this every new government makes it a priority to clean the system and once they are in power, they engage in revenge politics rather than pass any useful legislation that would actually bring us upto EU standards. Bulgarians don’t see much of a involvement from EU in this situation sphere.
3: Second class Europe: This according to me is totally EU’s fault. The EU politics is all about equality and Solidarity as long as we are talking about the Benelux nations. Bulgaria and Romania has been constantly vetoed out of Schengen by countries like Netherlands which uses stupid excuses like rule of law CVM monitoring (not supposed to be associated with the decision) and no one seems to be saying anything. However when Bulgaria vetoes North Macedonia accession due to genuine dispute, Bulgaria gets pressured by the same countries. Overall Bulgarians do feel like a second class citizens of the Union.
60 е прекалено много
The other 40% don’t understand neither the question, nor the answer.
The other 40% already left
Not sure about everyone, and I am living in USA atm, but here are my 2 cents.
First off, I think the EU is great. Especially their treatment and protections for their citizens compared to US. However, there are some things that have been made worse imo. The biggest being food. I left BG in 2002, 5 years before BG joined the EU. At the time, the bread was amazing. It was traditional Rhodope bread. Now, most of the bread sold there is processed crap barely any better than here in the US. That was one of the first changes, but much of the other food choices have followed suit. Last time I visited was July 2021, and I noticed that the ice cream was no longer as creamy and flavorful as before. It tasted like american ice cream – of sugar and nothing else. It didn’t even have the creaminess I loved so much. The ice cream wasn’t that bad in 2016. The кашкавал seems worse too, and more and more things are being sweetened woth HFCS. That’s definitely worse than how it was when I was growing up. It seems to me that all this started changing when we joined the EU.
Because Bulgarians are stupid that’s why