Neu Leonstein
23-03-2007, 02:27
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,473377,00.html
Holtland, a town in Germany's north-western Ostfriesland region, is four meters (13 feet) above sea level. It boasts a church, an elementary school, two grocery stories, 2,200 inhabitants -- and a generous benefactor in Brussels.
Uwe Themann, the 49-year-old head of the town council, is proud to show off his hometown, and for good reason. Thanks to generous payments from the EU's coffers, Holtland has been thoroughly prettified. Everything in this small town, from the village square to the town hall, the kindergarten and the building where the fire department stores its equipment, has been tweaked and smoothed over to look like something straight out of some picture book of what a little German village ought to look like.
A network of narrow, red-and-gray cobbled streets and bike paths weave in and out of this bucolic composition of red brick and steep rooflines. At first asphalt was good enough for Holtland, but when local politicians discovered that Brussels would assume half the cost of improvements, money was suddenly no object. The streets and bike paths, it should be mentioned, are largely empty.
Even the town's old mill is in full working order once again, thanks to EU subsidies. But because it doesn't fulfill the EU's strict hygiene requirements, it can no longer be used to mill grain. But the piece de resistance stands at the entrance to the town, on Highway 436. The structure consists of red brick walls, thick beams and a tiled roof covering benches, a telephone booth and a village map in a glass case. The stylish little building is a glorified bike rack.
A pretty decent article outlining the ridiculous proportions Brussel's bureaucracy is assuming, the lobbying and all the rest of it. How some people can keep going with their complaints about a "neoliberal" EU is a mystery to me...this is exactly the sort of stuff that brought the Soviet Union down.
Holtland, a town in Germany's north-western Ostfriesland region, is four meters (13 feet) above sea level. It boasts a church, an elementary school, two grocery stories, 2,200 inhabitants -- and a generous benefactor in Brussels.
Uwe Themann, the 49-year-old head of the town council, is proud to show off his hometown, and for good reason. Thanks to generous payments from the EU's coffers, Holtland has been thoroughly prettified. Everything in this small town, from the village square to the town hall, the kindergarten and the building where the fire department stores its equipment, has been tweaked and smoothed over to look like something straight out of some picture book of what a little German village ought to look like.
A network of narrow, red-and-gray cobbled streets and bike paths weave in and out of this bucolic composition of red brick and steep rooflines. At first asphalt was good enough for Holtland, but when local politicians discovered that Brussels would assume half the cost of improvements, money was suddenly no object. The streets and bike paths, it should be mentioned, are largely empty.
Even the town's old mill is in full working order once again, thanks to EU subsidies. But because it doesn't fulfill the EU's strict hygiene requirements, it can no longer be used to mill grain. But the piece de resistance stands at the entrance to the town, on Highway 436. The structure consists of red brick walls, thick beams and a tiled roof covering benches, a telephone booth and a village map in a glass case. The stylish little building is a glorified bike rack.
A pretty decent article outlining the ridiculous proportions Brussel's bureaucracy is assuming, the lobbying and all the rest of it. How some people can keep going with their complaints about a "neoliberal" EU is a mystery to me...this is exactly the sort of stuff that brought the Soviet Union down.