The arrival of Polish plumbers, even by the thousand, could only have been a blessing.

ECONOMIST: EU membership has worked magic in central Europe

Polish plumbers turn into bogeymen, posing a supposedly fearful threat to western Europeans.

ECONOMIST: The EU's leaders needn't always look so gloomy

French voters may have objected to the arrival of Polish plumbers under liberalisation pushed by a Dutch commissioner, Frits Bolkestein.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

But it has foundered on fears of a flood of Polish plumbers and Hungarian hairdressers flowing west, undercutting high domestic wages.

ECONOMIST: When growth and social protections clash | The

French trade lobbies gave warning that Polish plumbers would swamp the country, yet they also agreed that France was desperately short of plumbers.

ECONOMIST: EU membership has worked magic in central Europe

The French no campaign harped on the fear that living standards would be undermined by competition from the east (famously symbolised by Polish plumbers).

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

Certainly some Poles are having real doubts about the EU - perhaps not about the decision to join, but the treatment they have received since, from French fears of job-seeking Polish plumbers to the European Parliament hostility to their government's hardline social conservatism.

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