Why I will vote no in the EU referendum - I.

Article published on Invisible Dog before the referendum on the Czech Republic’s accession to the EU
Comment:
I have been inspired by three people to try to vent my views in this way from time to time (although uneducated and untrained to do so).
The first is Ondřej Neff, whose Invisible Dog is (if possible) visible on my monitor daily, and whose reading gives me much more pleasure than reading the reprinted CTK reports in our paper newspapers.
The other is my father, who has been longing to have his column somewhere since sometime in the mid-nineties, entitled “Yesterday made me angry” (he used a somewhat more expressive term that is probably not suitable for publication). I’m too lazy and too resigned to spend every day bemoaning the injustices of the world, and because I also have to make a living, I will only write occasionally.
The third is (presumably Senator) Vízek, who has published his views several times in The Invisible Dog, and who has thus eliminated my fears that no one can read or (heaven forbid) publish my misguided drivel.

Just reading the politically incorrect headline will probably lift many EU accession supporters out of their chairs. I apologise for my political incorrectness, but I cannot help it.
Both supporters and opponents of EU accession have their (sometimes publicised) arguments, but I feel that I can’t quite identify with almost any of them.

Perhaps the most frequently cited potential plus points are subsidies and development programmes. I am not naturally frugal, and indeed, if someone wanted to stuff some money into my pocket, I would intuitively look for clothing that would be equipped with more and larger pockets than my current one. I guess it’s bad upbringing, maybe some genetic mutation, but I’m not thrilled with the idea of someone contributing from their taxes (formerly a take – I think from the word “take”) to buy something I could get even if I worked more or better. I have healthy hands, a somewhat functioning head, and (as far as I can remember) I have not yet had the need to stand outside a church or on the street in the expectation that it is somehow considered proper to give something to those passing by.
As a country, I think we are in a similar situation. Sure, there are much richer countries whose wealth we enviously ogle, but at the same time, it’s important to remember that some 90% of the world’s population would trade with us in a heartbeat.

I ask – are we using what we have enough to make us better off? Couldn’t our state do without a lot of the activities it does and shouldn’t it be doing properly those that are sort of “in the job description”? We more or less take a dysfunctional judiciary as a given that we have to put up with, praying that we never need the police who, within a few hours spent with us in the department, merely draw up a report and then, after a few weeks, send us a note saying that the perpetrator has not been traced, or that his actions do not meet the characteristics of a crime, we grumble a little discontentedly about an army in which there is almost one civilian employee for every soldier and which (as we probably suspect) would protect us at most against an attack by a band of medieval knights. But we have some authority for almost every conceivable problem (and if it turns out that we don’t, we create it promptly); everyone has had their experience of the competence and willingness of officials.
If we saved on objectively unnecessary expenses, we might not need so many subsidies and subsidies…

What is completely unacceptable to my nature is the humiliating threats that have erupted, for example, around agricultural subsidies (everyone probably knows that agricultural subsidies, which support the senseless cultivation and subsequent export of unnecessary crops, make up the bulk of the EU budget). How could we allow our Czech farmers not to have the same subsidies as their European colleagues? That his earnings would subsequently be a multiple of the average wage in the Czech Republic? Never mind, as long as the rich don’t somehow shortchange us and give us our due, right?
Just like the overly broad system of social benefits for citizens, which does not motivate them to seek better paid work or perhaps (God forbid) to improve their work performance or move, and which systemically (how else, since it is a system) degrades the socially vulnerable to professional seekers of “where else can the state be pumped”, so too will the public institutions employ (indeed) professional seekers, looking for what can be pumped into the EU budget. After all, EU officials are like any other officials – the more money that passes through their hands, the more subordinates they can have, the more they can demand higher salaries and feel more power.
So why am I actually against joining the EU if it will not cost me more in terms of subsidies than the financial benefit to the Czech Republic?

Because the state will not look for its own reserves from which to obtain the necessary funds for the necessary projects and thus will demand more and more taxes from me, which gradually become those taxes again.
Because I am not at all sure that those in the EU who will pay these subsidies from their taxes are happy to contribute to making life better for me, who have healthy hands and a brain between my ears.
Because I doubt that anyone in the EU today will ask in a referendum, “Do you want the Czech Republic to become a member of the EU? It will cost you so and so much in taxes.”
Because I am not sure that the citizens of a country that contributes less to the 90 per cent of the world’s poorer citizens than Mr Kavan’s annual contribution to his UN post will be happy when the next candidate comes to them saying: “Pay up, fatso, I’m on a budget and we’re sharing space!”
Because I doubt anyone will ask me in the referendum after our admission to the EU, “Do you want to stay in the EU?” Or, “Do you want so-and-so country to join the EU? It will cost you so much and so much.”

So those are my reasons why I will not support joining the EU in the referendum, no matter how much it subsidises. I have others, but I’ll talk about those next time, I’m going to make a living.