A European Story: Of pigs, horses and people’s lives
It all started in Romania, a poor country that saw benefits in joining the European Union, because of the many much-needed subsidies it could receive to build infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, schools and hospitals.
Before its entry into the EU’s single market, Romania had a well-established system to feed its people at low cost: many amongst its large farming population raised two pigs per year. After slaughter, the meat of each pig was prepared in various ways to last a whole year. The farmer kept the proceeds of one pig to feed the family, while an urban family came to get the meat from the second pig, thus ensuring their yearly food at very low cost. Everyone was fed, the system worked and everybody was a winner.
As soon as Romania entered the European Union, its government was immediately notified by Brussels that this pig situation could not go on, as it failed to comply with European health regulations. The farmers had to take their pigs to proper slaughterhouses, where the meat would be bought by weight. But whatever money the farmers made from that sale, it was far from ensuring their year’s food, since from then on they had to buy their meat in stores, which generally meant big European supermarkets that had immediately moved into Romania. And the urban people were faced with the same problem as the farmers: whatever they had paid for their yearly pig at the farm, the same amount was far from ensuring supermarket food for a whole year. Everyone, except the big supermarkets, was a loser. Even the pigs, who now had to travel some distance to a slaughterhouse, had a more harrowing end to their brief lives.
Meanwhile roads, bridges, schools and hospitals were indeed built, and at the same pace many European auto industries relocated there, simply because wages in Romanian car factories were massively lower than those in French, German, Spanish or Italian plants. The relocations of these companies produced a rise in unemployment in these countries, with the further snowball effect of thousands of sub-contractor companies having to close down.
Those auto companies now produced cars in Romania at lower cost, and they looked for a way to open their market there. They soon found the way to do it: a great number of the population used horse-drawn carts for transportation of goods and all sorts of other daily purposes. So the car companies lobbied the European Union to put pressure on the Romanian government to outlaw the use of horse-drawn carts on roads, so as to force the Romanian people to buy cars. This of course meant they had to take out loans, which was good for European banks that immediately opened branch-offices there.
Once the horse-drown carts were outlawed , the Romanians who owned horses were suddenly faced with the fact that they couldn’t afford to keep feeding a horse, if the animal was no longer useful. So they took them to the slaughterhouses. Suddenly
Romania had tonnes of horsemeat to sell, and corrupt European industrial food companies saw a great opportunity to make good money at low investment: they bought the horsemeat very cheap, transported the meat into most European countries where they changed its label to beef, after which they used it for the preparation of various frozen dinners, such as lasagne, ravioli, etc, sold at beef cost. The issue was not the species so much as the fact that the horses had never been passed for human consumption, though it is true also that in many countries there is a cultural aversion to eating an animal traditionally used as a beast of burden or for leisure purposes, rather than a source of food.
When the information leaked out, it created a huge scandal. Frozen dinners had to be withdrawn from supermarkets in many European countries. It was further revealed that some of the horsemeat disguised as beef was contaminated: some of the horses had been in bad health when slaughtered.
Meanwhile, many Romanian people found themselves in a situation in which not only could they not afford supermarket food, but they were also forced to buy a car on loan, as a result of which they sank further into poverty. Since they no longer needed a passport to cross the EU’s internal frontiers, or a visa or work permit to enter EU member states, many migrated to richer European countries to find work, where they were exploited, often receiving slave salaries in informal sectors. This infuriated many people in these countries, which were already suffering from rising unemployment and downward pressure on wages. Despite EU freedom of movement rules, governments have responded by in various ways making life difficult for these migrants. They are subject to harassment, arrest and deportation, and are then blamed for the expense, which of course falls on the taxpayer.
Often, those deported will stay put in Romania for a month or two, and then leave once again for the European “Eldorado” of their choice, where they find again some slave work until they are once more subject to the same treatment. And on and on it goes.
I here wish to open a parenthesis about an important aspect of this leakage of Romanian people all over Europe, because it touches a certain category of people who have had and continue to have no voice to be heard: in Romania itself, the Roms (gypsies) are considered to be sub-humans. Already exterminated during the Second World War, they suffer today discrimination from the rest of the Romanian people. The subsidies the government receives from the European Union to build infrastructures never reach their slums and don’t better their lives in any way. As a result, a great number of them leave Romania to try their luck elsewhere in Europe, to meet with even more fierce racial police harassment than the Romanians themselves.
This is the story about how the people of Romania and in a snow ball effect the people of other European countries find themselves in a losing position, while the big winners, of course, are the European industrial food companies and supermarkets, auto companies and banks. At the heart of this process is the EU, with its single market and passion for deregulation.
Annick Baud is an artist who “dreams of a silent, non violent revolution, when all the people of all major countries around the world will unite to stop paying their taxes, which feed this global corrupt system.” She realises that this makes her, in her own words, “an anarchist utopian.”
Before its entry into the EU’s single market, Romania had a well-established system to feed its people at low cost: many amongst its large farming population raised two pigs per year. After slaughter, the meat of each pig was prepared in various ways to last a whole year. The farmer kept the proceeds of one pig to feed the family, while an urban family came to get the meat from the second pig, thus ensuring their yearly food at very low cost. Everyone was fed, the system worked and everybody was a winner.
As soon as Romania entered the European Union, its government was immediately notified by Brussels that this pig situation could not go on, as it failed to comply with European health regulations. The farmers had to take their pigs to proper slaughterhouses, where the meat would be bought by weight. But whatever money the farmers made from that sale, it was far from ensuring their year’s food, since from then on they had to buy their meat in stores, which generally meant big European supermarkets that had immediately moved into Romania. And the urban people were faced with the same problem as the farmers: whatever they had paid for their yearly pig at the farm, the same amount was far from ensuring supermarket food for a whole year. Everyone, except the big supermarkets, was a loser. Even the pigs, who now had to travel some distance to a slaughterhouse, had a more harrowing end to their brief lives.
Meanwhile roads, bridges, schools and hospitals were indeed built, and at the same pace many European auto industries relocated there, simply because wages in Romanian car factories were massively lower than those in French, German, Spanish or Italian plants. The relocations of these companies produced a rise in unemployment in these countries, with the further snowball effect of thousands of sub-contractor companies having to close down.
Those auto companies now produced cars in Romania at lower cost, and they looked for a way to open their market there. They soon found the way to do it: a great number of the population used horse-drawn carts for transportation of goods and all sorts of other daily purposes. So the car companies lobbied the European Union to put pressure on the Romanian government to outlaw the use of horse-drawn carts on roads, so as to force the Romanian people to buy cars. This of course meant they had to take out loans, which was good for European banks that immediately opened branch-offices there.
Once the horse-drown carts were outlawed , the Romanians who owned horses were suddenly faced with the fact that they couldn’t afford to keep feeding a horse, if the animal was no longer useful. So they took them to the slaughterhouses. Suddenly
Romania had tonnes of horsemeat to sell, and corrupt European industrial food companies saw a great opportunity to make good money at low investment: they bought the horsemeat very cheap, transported the meat into most European countries where they changed its label to beef, after which they used it for the preparation of various frozen dinners, such as lasagne, ravioli, etc, sold at beef cost. The issue was not the species so much as the fact that the horses had never been passed for human consumption, though it is true also that in many countries there is a cultural aversion to eating an animal traditionally used as a beast of burden or for leisure purposes, rather than a source of food.
When the information leaked out, it created a huge scandal. Frozen dinners had to be withdrawn from supermarkets in many European countries. It was further revealed that some of the horsemeat disguised as beef was contaminated: some of the horses had been in bad health when slaughtered.
Meanwhile, many Romanian people found themselves in a situation in which not only could they not afford supermarket food, but they were also forced to buy a car on loan, as a result of which they sank further into poverty. Since they no longer needed a passport to cross the EU’s internal frontiers, or a visa or work permit to enter EU member states, many migrated to richer European countries to find work, where they were exploited, often receiving slave salaries in informal sectors. This infuriated many people in these countries, which were already suffering from rising unemployment and downward pressure on wages. Despite EU freedom of movement rules, governments have responded by in various ways making life difficult for these migrants. They are subject to harassment, arrest and deportation, and are then blamed for the expense, which of course falls on the taxpayer.
Often, those deported will stay put in Romania for a month or two, and then leave once again for the European “Eldorado” of their choice, where they find again some slave work until they are once more subject to the same treatment. And on and on it goes.
I here wish to open a parenthesis about an important aspect of this leakage of Romanian people all over Europe, because it touches a certain category of people who have had and continue to have no voice to be heard: in Romania itself, the Roms (gypsies) are considered to be sub-humans. Already exterminated during the Second World War, they suffer today discrimination from the rest of the Romanian people. The subsidies the government receives from the European Union to build infrastructures never reach their slums and don’t better their lives in any way. As a result, a great number of them leave Romania to try their luck elsewhere in Europe, to meet with even more fierce racial police harassment than the Romanians themselves.
This is the story about how the people of Romania and in a snow ball effect the people of other European countries find themselves in a losing position, while the big winners, of course, are the European industrial food companies and supermarkets, auto companies and banks. At the heart of this process is the EU, with its single market and passion for deregulation.
Annick Baud is an artist who “dreams of a silent, non violent revolution, when all the people of all major countries around the world will unite to stop paying their taxes, which feed this global corrupt system.” She realises that this makes her, in her own words, “an anarchist utopian.”
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