East Europe's Soaring Property Prices Fuel Discontent With EU
Real estate prices have risen as much as 100 percent in the eight former communist states that joined the EU in 2004, driven by buyers from Western Europe. Many locals, with less than a quarter the buying power of their neighbors, have been locked out of the market, adding to frustration with EU membership and eroding support for budget cuts needed to adopt the euro. East Europeans are angry about rules that prevent them from working in most of the 15 older EU nations, while their own governments reduce spending on pensions, health care and other social programs to join Europe's single currency.
In Poland, the free-market Citizens' Platform lost September elections to a coalition of parties critical of EU membership. The Czech Republic's parliament is at a stalemate, with the Social Democrats and Communists fighting to boost pensions and state wages and the Civic Democrats calling for tax cuts to spur economic growth.
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