Germany has basically subsidized its formerly East-German states for 20 years now. Very much comparible in my opinion. After reunification, most East-German com

Germany has basically subsidized its formerly East-German states for 20 years now. Very much comparible in my opinion. After reunification, most East-German companies were not competitive (in large part due to the 1:1 exchange rate between East-Mark and DMark which was chosen for political reasons) and they never really catched up. But for West-German companies, it's a nice market to sell their products. The real problem is that there are or will be efforts by the EU to persuade e.g. Greece to heighten the retirement age, or Ireland to increase corporate taxes -- without proper democratic legitimization. That's scary.