Anna van Densky, OPINION

The European Parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt suggested that in 2019 British citizens will have not more rights to travel across Europe than Russians or Indians. The idea immediately reciprocated by  the UKIP leader Nigel Farage:

Guy Verhofstadt launched a ‘Fake news alert’, however it did not change the essence of his vision: the idea of ‘punishment’ of the UK for Brexit is very much alive and it has been manifested in different ways previously.  This time the British tourists have been ‘taken hostage’. However it is the European tourist industry to suffer from the implications of  dogmatism of the Brussels elite, looking for creation of a negative example from Brexit to block the way for any other EU nation to consider such an option. The same time  Eurocentric’s in their narrow-minded approach do not understand that chosing to keep the EU together by fear of consequences in case of exit, will rub off negatively of the image of the entire European project, downgrading its popularity among the EU27 citizens.

The fear of the toursit industry to be sacrificed for the political EU27 long-term purposes is not ungrouded – the EU agricultural sector has been already suffering heavy loses  as a consequence of a geopolitical dispute between the EU and Russia over Ukraine reflected in  war of sanctions. The idea of making tourism to EU27 difficult for Brittons is exposing  the fanaticism of the Brussels Eurocentrics, propelling their own sociopolitical agenda at costs of the EU tax-payers, but  without any consideration of their interests.