20_The_European_Union

But being a participating country has also some cons, because some of the laws of the decision-making bodies seems too strict or pointless to me and the main representatives a most influential countries also want to have too big authority and control over the economy, agriculture and industry of the smaller countries. So the states maybe lose some of their sovereignty.

Joining the CR to the EU also has its advantages and disadvantages. Like I‘ve already said, as the citizens of the EU we all have the right to travel, stay or work in any of the member states. Czech students have the right to spend their whole term of studies at European universities, not only several terms like they could before.

Travelling is also much easier than it was before, because there aren’t any customs controls and regulations on the borders, we can travel with more freedom and also transport goods from other countries.

Czech became an official language of the EU. This means that all official documents are translated into Czech now. When we get into trouble in a foreign country, we can ask for help at any embassy of any EU member state. We also don’t need an international driving licence in the member countries of the EU.

Many of our municipal councils also applied and received European donations so they could make their cities and villages better and nicer. And realize their capital-intensive projects.

On the other hand some of our companies were forced to stop the producing or rename their products because they weren’t suitable with the European orders.

I personally think that the idea of a single Europe is great because we could have a common powerful organization which would be able to compete for example with the United States and other world powers. So the EU should have better business conditions than each single country separately.

I think that the EU will expand more in the future although most of the countries are already members. Nowadays there are several candidate states for the membership in the EU, like Turkey and until they realize conditions for the acceptance to the union they won’t became participants. So they have to improve living and environment in their countries to became ones, which is also a good thing.

On the other hand I quite disagree with the acceptance of the euro in our country because I’m glad we have our national currency and I like to use Czech crowns. I‘m also afraid that if we accepted the euro, the prices of the goods would grow, which was the problem in Germany, but they have much bigger salaries than we do. The acceptance of the euro also made a problem in Slovakia. So I think if the UK can keep their currency, we also can. Our currency is also quite strong these days.