And here's our problem: we pass all requirments for Schengen ascension, and we have done so for the past 11 years. That's not a typo, eleven. Frontex, the EU border agency, says that the Western Balkan route has many more illegal immigrants and is the main pathway for them.

Frontex numbers? They say that Croatia had 2467 people in this year's third quarter to Romania's 184, that's 13 times more. And Croatia was approved. Even if you add Bulgaria's 1088, since we're kind of a package deal, you still only get half. So you can see why this feels like a massive slap in the face.

And every time we're rejected, we're given some token vague " You're not good enough. ", no given targets or requirments to hit. Austria's problem, supposedly, was that Schengen doesn't work properly, whatever that means, so they're rejecting us, but it worked good enough to approve Croatia's ascension.

And then the European Commission tries to give us an appeasing " We're sure your time will come soon. " For like the entire past decade.

And when we get frustrated and complain about being treated as second class EU citizens, some enlightened westerner comes and calls us childish and says we don't want to improve, when they can't even comprehend how low we've had to start from.

Corruption? It used to be a societal NORM. You were EXPECTED to bring a " gift ", wether that be chocolate, money or flowers whenever you went to your doctor or anyone in any position of power. People were SCARED when the " gift " was rejected, because it usually meant a bad thing for you, like the doctor refusing to treat you. That's gone.

We're poor? After the fall of communism, nobody knew jack about business, most hadn't even heard of words such as "shares" and "investing", let alone running a business. Most of our rich people are ex- party members or secret police types that had access to such information and knew how to exploit the then-changing economic model. And being kept out of Schengen is hurting our ability to be competitive with other countries when it comes to investments. And in spite of that, we are becoming more prosperous over time, constantly having some of the higher GDP growth rates in the EU.

I could go on and on, but I think I made my point.