"Full countries" is a lie. You hear it often here in the Netherlands.
What they don't want you to hear is that 54% of the land in the country is owned by agricultural companies[0], benefitting a tiny fraction of the population.
If they're exporting crops that's about feeding somebody. People who would have to try to get their food elsewhere and have to worry about the standards/quality of those new sources. It's even perfectly fine for people to grow and sell flowers. There may be ways to make it more efficient, and maybe the government should be encouraging that so they can buy up some of the saved land, but I'd bet there are ecological consequences to paving over flower farms too.
Economically it would make more sense to import food from France, Spain etc. it would reduce the cost of living for the overwhelming majority of people with limited negative economic impact.
The Netherlands is completely tiny compared to many of the countries people are coming from, and the land is allocated. You can't replace the farms with suburbs throughout the country, and even if you did, then what? Is it allowed to be full then? Or should people still leave their much more land-rich origins to come anyway?
Does EU have the USA problem where most farmers are basically sharecroppers where they are mandated where they can buy their seed, buy their fertilizers, where they buy their chicks/sows/calfs, what equipment they can buy, how they can repair their equipment, where they can sell their crops, and at what specific prices all from a single undemocratic corporation?
In the USA it's basically corporations that run everything and drive the farmers into poverty where said corporations can then buy their land and rely on undocumented workers to keep the abuse going.
From the outside EU farmers seem to have better labor relations, but don't know.
Swiss here, living in a small town quite close to farmers. I would expect if it was the case here, I would have heard about it, given my proximity. I'm aware of this "arrangement" in the US, never heard of it happening anywhere in the EU - I haven't done a comprehensive study though, maybe someone with more knowledge can say more.
Considering EU farmers tend to riot with their tractors in the capitals of countries which try to control them I doubt it.
AFAIK Norwegian farmers fear of things like this was what kept Norway out of EU even with two referendums (or at least one of the distinguishing factors).
The taboo is the notion that the European Union needs to be reformed (no pun intended!). I was a Remainer, and do not regret that, but I hoped the EU would clean house. (Yes, the UK should do as well btw. Scotland should be independent. The House of Lords, Whitehall and Royal Family need a major overhaul.)
As someone who's pro-EU, I'd also really like to see major reforms within the organization.
While it contributes enormously to the welfare of the continent, the EU is by design dysfunctional and toothless.
I'm a pessimist, there is so much money behind the forces that want to see the EU fall apart because small individual countries are easier to buy off, I don't see how we can defend against that.
We'll only know what we lost when it's gone, but then it'll be too late.
IMO, the only thing that will contain Reform is Farage suffering consequences for misconduct. That or being overtaken by even worse people. The two things…
Your link largely agrees; the "Polls of polls" shows a general consensus on a tight Remain win, and the chart shows the convergence being very late in the game.
A lot of peple in this chain aren't paid to have a sense of ownership. They just do their job and their personal opinion of the work doesn't really matter.
Some of us care. Standing up and saying the product is crap leads to being asked to leave (fired). Or ends up on deaf ears, and the product is hated by people. Been in both situations, it doesn't seem there is a winning position.
...which wouldn't be as big a deal if the blue collar factory jobs weren't also gone to the far east. Conceptually, the only non-shit jobs left to automate are artisan-style trades like plumbing and carpentry. These are great careers, and there is probably unmet demand, but they can't possibly absorb the number of new adults we're minting each year.
Absent some kind of worldwide revolution, the U.S. will essentially need to start from zero and work their way up the value chain the same way China did over the last forty something years. It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll.
What they don't want you to hear is that 54% of the land in the country is owned by agricultural companies[0], benefitting a tiny fraction of the population.
[0] https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/achtergrond/2025/14/feiten-en-cijfe...
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