alt Hacker NewsThink of it as an investment. The rest of the EU also benefits from their hard work, and economic prosperity. Other countries in the EU have also enjoyed economic growth and support over the years.
I'm old enough to remember internal borders with passport checks in Europe, before the wall fell and Poland was still on the other side of that. Nice to see them moving on from that.
Thanks to the EU free movement of people, I've now studied, worked and lived in four different countries. I know people all over Europe. I currently live in Germany. Germany benefits a lot from the EU. Yes it costs money. But there's trade, access to skilled labour, etc. as well. And if you look at Poland, it's what sits between Germany and Belarus & Ukraine. So, there's a strategic relevance as well. Poland doing fine is good for everyone else in the EU.
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>Think of it as an investment.
An economic investment as well as one of solidarity. People forget that the EU is a peace project that ensures peace via economic cooperation. This nuance seems trivial but is actually massively important. I can see trust degrading in the US but being fortified across the EU.
Look at Hungary recently, they did a 180 not because of Brussels or Berlin saying they should. Hungarians are sceptical of both. However they do trust the Polish people who they see as genuine peers who are very pro-EU.
I wonder if that's part of why the US is a superpower: the richer states being forced to invest in the poorer ones.
In the early 20th century Texas for instance was a poor state, a recipient of federal funds, but now it's an economic powerhouse. (To be precise I still think it's a recipient of federal funding but it holds its own now.)
> Think of it as an investment. The rest of the EU also benefits from their hard work, and economic prosperity. Other countries in the EU have also enjoyed economic growth and support over the years.
It is for as long, as the EU exists in its current form. The rise of anti-EU parties in both Poland and Germany makes it a risky investment.
Yes, this is an important aspect of the EU, and other countries like Spain and Ireland benefited in the same way.
And it's a good thing, but I wish Eastern European countries would recognize this and become more of a team player instead of shitting on EU.
Poland waited for Trump 2nd term, threatening the take some of the EU territory by force to finally transition from buying US weapons to buying from other European countries.
Not to mention a stronger economy means stronger defense against the Russian threat.
Okay, but Poland taking all / most of the credit is just strange in that light.
> I'm old enough to remember internal borders with passport checks in Europe, before the wall fell and Poland was still on the other side of that. Nice to see them moving on from that.
Europe is the outlier here. The rest of the world checks your passport when you come in their country because they like to know who comes and who goes for a lot of reasons including public safety, biosecurity and so on.
The fact that Europe has basically given up on trying to filter who comes in is not necessarily a model that is desirable for the rest of the world.
> Thanks to the EU free movement of people, I've now studied, worked and lived in four different countries.
You can do that without Europe as well. Do you think people did not move to another country or studied in another country before the European countries decided to remove borders? What about now with all the students moving to the US/UK/Australia/Canada?
I’m not very familiar with deep EU politics. But I’ve heard a lot of complaints from colleagues in countries like Germany and the Netherlands about feeling like their taxes mainly help countries like Poland.
While what you’re saying may be true, and this prosperity may be good for all of Europe, I think there is a lot of resentment about who the beneficiaries of the EU structure are.
> Think of it as an investment. The rest of the EU also benefits from their hard work, and economic prosperity. Other countries in the EU have also enjoyed economic growth and support over the years.
This is something I tell people I am generally politically/socially align with (liberals/progressives) when they start talking about “handouts for red states.” California and other areas were not developed on their own, they required years of sustained federal investment and interest in the area.
It obviously goes without saying that conservatives in the US need to stop demonizing taxes so much for the same reason/they need to recognize that as the some of the largest beneficiaries of federal tax dollars they are cutting their nose to spite their face (I believe Kentucky is still the most subsidized state in the US).
All of us should want our states cooperation with the federal government so we can all rise together, and we need to view investing in our neighbors as a collective good.
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The question is not whether it is an investment or whether it is not.
The question is whether growth is objective and fair or whether it is not.
For comparison of wealth in Poland, ALL net-subsidies would have to be deducted, because this is essentially wealth taken from other countries, and distributed to poorer areas in the EU. I am not disputing that this leads to more growth; I am disputing the "country xyz is now rich" while not even mentioning the subsidies. And that reuters article does not mention that at all.
It also has to be mentioned because the crazy bureaucrats in Brussels want to aggressively expand eastwards. They think that the richer areas in the EU need to pay for that expansion. I simply fail to agree with that "logic" at all and I also consider it hugely unfair to richer areas. The richer areas made good decisions; now this is being negated by bureaucrats in Brussels. That is unfair. (This is not meant against Poland, but against the constant expansionistic agenda from Brussels.)
"I'm old enough to remember internal borders with passport checks in Europe"
Did you recently crossed borders? On many the checks are there again, because of fear of immigration terrorism or something, so the people could see, politicians were doing something to make them feel safe (but what I could see when passing borders, especially between poland and germany, were looong lines of trucks, so much for free flowing goods).
Not sure of the current situation, though, but last summer and autumn was horrible with checks (probably still better than what was before, but having experienced the real open border situation, having them restricted again is frustrating).
> The rest of the EU also benefits from their hard work
I don't know. I want to agree with you, but a large part of the economic growth in Poland is off-shoring and cheap tax (~12% on contract) for tech workers. The average tech wage there now is pretty similar to the UK, and I don't really see many startups there - probably in part because of how bureaucratic their business system can be. I don't know if this influx of foreign money from off-shoring and surge in real estate pricing is sustainable or good in the long run.
Other than a massive influx of overdevelopment of flats in the cities (sometimes too rushed, I've seen reports of flat blocks subsiding because of cutting corners), I'm not sure where else the increase it.