Support the chances

But in these countries there is also a lot of potential. To name a few I could start with the human resources in its youth. Not all but many young people are eager and willing to work very hard and invest in themselves. Besides their majors they speak one or two extra languages next to their mother tongue.

The robust educational system and more specifically the beta studies are another asset. In comparison to The Netherlands young people still enroll in these studies.

Furthermore I think that our Western products shouldn’t automatically replace the traditions of homegrown food and honest recipes and some of the traditional products. Is the EU influence only based on streamlining food security from the viewpoint of risk prevention and quality control? Or can it also leave space for the traditions of these countries, that might not have given them very high product efficiency, but certainly better tasting fruits and veggies, plus the tradition to use everything and to throw away nothing. Earlier, I wrote about complaining Dutch citizens, because the plumb trees planted in their streets were polluting their cars and attracted wasps. In the countries I visited nobody needs to die of hunger in summer and autumn, because fruit and nut trees, vegetables in the fields, can provide for all. Here the people are much closer to nature and its products than in Northwestern Europe. Their tradition and our so-called ‘slow-food’ and honest homegrown products could be combined.

However is it possible to keep these chances intact? Or will the patterns of change, like I saw them in the nineties in Poland and the Baltic States, repeat itself? A total wipe out of their traditional products by the multinational giants, like for instance Coca Cola, Pepsi, Unilever, Nestlé etc. and with the by-effect of an enormous aluminum, metal and plastic pollution, because their products are coming into a market where people have no or very small awareness of environmental effects of throwing away plastic bottles for example.

Why don’t we support these countries from the very beginning and start environmental awareness campaigns, with heavy duties for these multinationals, alongside the inevitable economic equalization process?

I am not an expert on the talks and negotiations that these countries go through in the stages of preparation for EU-admittance. But I hope that from the evaluation of the joining of CIS countries these lessons and insights are seriously used and applied. I believe that it would be good for them and also for us, since we have lost so much on our way to ‘progress’ that we only regretted after the losses were almost irreparable. That shouldn’t have to happen again. That would be a shame I think.

Personally, I have ‘tasted’ enough of these countries and people to most certainly bring me back there. Definitely in my free time, but maybe also in my professional time, using my previous experiences and try to fit these to our mutual benefits.