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Originally Posted by Wallaroo
What is your basis for saying that the civil liberties and the political rights are worse in those countries?
The level of human rights is without doubt much worse in the U.S. than in the countries you mentioned (maybe except Turkey) All countries that are members of the EU or wanna become members has to match the Copenhagen Criterias, which includes the respect of human rights according to HRW (Human Rights Watch) Romania and Bulgaria are actually rebuilding their prisons so they unlike most American prisons live up to the HRW standards.
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There's no doubt that the U.S. is behind Northern Europe when talking about human rights, but that pretty much completes the picture. The new members are far from fulfilling modern standards with the field, and I'm confident to say that on many areas they're worse than the U.S. To cite a few examples: in Estonia and Latvia 30% of the population are non-citizens with virtually no rights; and Roma minorities are suffering daily abuses in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. I don't think that HRW, which by the way is a US based NGO, has any say when it comes to EU membership.