EU unemployment fears!
Grazyna Gruz, a hairdresser in Slubice, Poland, says she supported her country's entry into the European Union last year. Then German customers, who cross the border for a cheap trim at her beauty salon, began talking about how high unemployment was at home.
Now she's worried Germany's troubles will spread and that the jobless rate in Poland, at 17.9 percent already the EU's highest, will get worse. `I'm beginning to have my doubts,' says Gruz, 44, who earns less than 1,000 zloty ($304) a month, about 25 percent of what a German hairstylist would make. `If it ends up here like it is in Germany, then I don't want it at all.'
The EU's failure to foster prosperity in the West is raising concern in Poland, whose population of 39 million makes it the largest country of the 10 that joined the EU last year. Polls show voters will oust the ruling Democratic Left Alliance in Sept. 25 parliamentary elections. The two parties poised to win and govern together are split over how quickly Poland should join the euro, the single European currency.
Gruz's experience is emblematic of disillusionment across the EU, which swelled to a population of 450 million when it admitted Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and seven other countries in May 2004. Its 25 nations are squabbling over how much the rich nations can afford to pay to help the new members and what their common future should be.