>but have no transfer payments between rich and poor members You do if you count open free trade, least that is the ideology. Though the reality is very dispr

>but have no transfer payments between rich and poor members You do if you count open free trade, least that is the ideology. Though the reality is very disproportional and for countries able and in a position to leverage that, did very well. So you get some countries doing better than others, how do you balance that out. Well, with a membership fee based upon how well the individual member is doing in relation to other members and using most of that fee to invest in those countries doing less well. Which seems a simple and fair way. At least on paper when they signed it all off it did. I will say though, I've always worried about the aggressive QE usage by the ECB. Whilst great for exports, it has equally impacted imports. This with most consumer tech being imported, then it would be more advantages to companies that export outside the EU to have QE keeping the Euro from racing ahead than for importers. Hence countries with a dominant export outside the EU, have done rather well out of QE and those importing, equally less so. But then, how QE is not counted as currency manipulation is beyond me.