Wage dumping, cross-border job regulations, dust particle guidelines -- for many Germans such issues stand for the negative aspects which make them feel increasingly insecure one year after the EU enlargement.
In contrast to France, surveys in Germany do continue to show a clear majority in favour of the new EU constitution.
But when the issue is about the effects of a bigger Europe on the job situation, then surveys also speak clearly: 66 percent of Germans feel the EU's eastward expansion is having a negative effect on jobs, compared with only 2 percent who feel the opposite.
And the views are not much different when it comes to a further enlargement of the EU. Two-thirds of Germans are opposed.
As the prestigious economic research institute DIW in Berlin points out, this stance is not restricted only to those who are unemployed or whose job situation is precarious. It cuts through every spectrum of German society.
Instead of a larger EU, the large majority of Germans rather want a deepening of EU structures, chiefly meaning greater integration and joint decision-making.
Berlin historian Heinrich August Winkler believes that Germany's policy on Europe has been a delusive one. For years, he said, it was argued that there was no contradiction between an expansion and a deepening of the EU.
"But in fact, the expansion has been forcefully advanced while the deepening is in danger of being left behind," Winkler said.
One result of this is an increasing alienation of citizens from European decisions, and German politicians are now sounding the alarm. Their top representatives are searching for ways to counter the widespread lack of acceptance of EU requirements.
Among others, Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber demands that "the German public, possibly through their state parliaments, must have more to say about EU issues."
Social Democratic Party leader Franz Muentefering thinks similarly.
"We should not be constantly behind," he said, arguing that the relationship between the national and EU levels is "the foremost future issue."
A suit filed at the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe against the EU arrest warrant has been a further blow. Politicians were jolted when the country's top judges almost directly accused them of having abandoned German citizens' basic legal protections.
There is an overall degree of uncertainty about the future path of Germany's policy on Europe a year after the EU enlargement. This became clear most recently in the dispute over relaxing the monetary stability pact rules.
Above all, Berlin and Paris pushed their positions through the EU, triggering talk afterwards of a "re-nationalization" of EU policy which could ultimately jeopardize the traditional role of Germany and France as innovators in Europe.
In any event, Germany's role as a bridge between the larger and smaller members has long since fallen by the wayside in the 25-nation union.
The euphoria of a year ago over the largest-ever EU enlargement -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder proclaimed then that in terms of jobs and the economy, "Germany will profit the most from the expansion" -- has given way to gloom. Newspaper headlines these days say "Europe is exhausted," or simply "Europe is annoying."
As a result, there are some voices now to be heard in Germany who are hoping that the anti-EU constitution camp will win in the French referendum set for the end of next month.
These people say that only then can the "integrationists" and the euphoric backers of a yet larger EU, one which will possibly open its doors to Turkey, be brought back to reality.
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