Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Country of Origin UK - What Next? Residency in Spain?


Today I wrote some letters on stationary that my mother bought in Italy in 2000.  On the package, was the following sticker indicating that its country of origin was the UK.



I had been studying at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in Malta in the late 1990s and recalled that back then the European Union (EU) was still adding countries through their many “enlargements” in order to bring in other countries to participate in a unified political system.

The 6 founding members of the European Community were Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.  In 1993 however, came the creation of the EU which included these countries and also the UK, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.

A unified customs system had begun years earlier however, with the European Economic Community.  

Nonetheless, given all of the developments since then it struck me as odd to see a product sold in Italy nonetheless marked with its country of origin as being the UK.

And speaking of developments, just earlier this month the US and European Union had a discussion on the possibility of joint trade relations.  For me this was quite unimaginable, because with the European model, the first step of having open trade borders led to integration on a much higher level, namely that someone from Bulgaria or Romania (joined EU in 2007) for example, can go and live in France or Spain and lawfully work there, and in fact, many have gone there.

Would opening up our trade borders ultimately open the door for me (or you) to live along the Mediterranean Sea in Cataluyna?  Wouldn’t that be nice to live in Barcelona???

And who would come and live here with us?  Makes you wonder…

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