6 ms·

Wealthy EU states treat Eastern Europe as a colony

24 points by chewz 5y ago

birbs 5y ago
Are the non-EU states like Belarus and Ukraine really better off than CEE EU states? While the situation may not be ideal for the CEE EU states, the alternative doesn't seem great either.
- smorgusofborg 5y ago
  It seems like a hit piece to me. Nothing is compared to other brain drains that happen through out the global economy. In the EU system places like Prague and Tallinn have grown and reasonable amounts of money comes back with retirees in Europe. In countries with greater wealth inequality how do the brain drains play out?
- beezischillin 5y ago
  I don’t know what to say to that, other than to talk about my experience living in Eastern Eruope: about two of my friends are the ones who remained in the country, everyone else has gone to the west, whether Austria, Germany or the UK, they all understood that there’s a better life waiting for them there (with its own pros and cons, of course). So very few remain with the will and the courage to wish for a system that’s not corrupt and fundamentally broken. And not just the people in STEM. Natural resources are also increasingly leaving, whether legally or through bribes to officials. And the money, something which always gets thrown at Eastern Europe, how it benefits from incredible amounts of grants - that tends to end up in private pockets and not in restoration, infrastructure or innovation. Again, I can’t tell you what the way forward should be, because I don’t see it myself and I’m certainly not smart enough to imagine it, but what’s happening is certainly noticeable even to individuals.
  - birbs 5y ago
    My point is that all those things happen in Belarus as well, except even worse. The average salary in Poland is around $1500 usd. In Belarus, it’s 300. In Ukraine, it’s around 800. Belarus is not immune from brain drain, either. Those who can leave, do leave. So the author should consider the alternative to joining the EU before calling the relationship exploitive.
    - RealityVoid 5y ago
      I fully agree with your stance. I am from Romania, and, although there are still many things missing, things are, IMO, getting better. There might be some sort of colonial relationship going, but we are getting in return many things as well, and we have grassroots economic initiatives lately as well. The political system is still a mess, but where is it not? For me, personally, it would make little sense leaving the country. Biggest reason could be the education system sucking a lot compared to the much better education system somewhere in the EU, and this would become important once I have kids.
    - axnk 5y ago
      Average salary in Belarus is $579, in Minsk is $812 and for IT is $1824. Data for July 2021. Cost of living in Minsk is 2-3 times lower than in other EU capitals.
  - mmarq 5y ago
    The same happens in Southern Europe and membership of the EU allowed me to get a 6-digit income and to live in a country where I don’t need a political affiliation to get a decent job and where the state bureaucracy is not merely a welfare system for government employees. I’m not sure I’d blame this state of affairs on the countries that decided to not be economic basket-cases. What should Germany do? Cut its productivity or destroy its value chains?
    - aiilns 5y ago
      Individually there are of course benefits to being able to go to richer countries. On the whole though it is obvious that a free market within the EU is vastly better for the large established industries of the west. An underdeveloped country can hardly compete with the likes of already huge corporations without some serious backing from the state. And even then it may be unfeasible. Of course you can blame Germany and other developed nations with established industries that while benefiting from educated immigrants and the free market within the EU don't care to give anything back, or even view this as problematic in any way.
      - mmarq 5y ago
        I don’t see this as problematic because, at least for Eastern European countries, the west absorbed some of their unemployment, while they were catching up, potentially reducing internal tensions and smoothing the transition to a modern high value-added economy. Access to the European market allowed them to become part of the German value-chain, which produced wealth and exported technology and know-how. All this while receiving transfers from the West to build infrastructure. I’m not sure what alternative scenario we could have had. I think that Poland outside the EU would have ended up closer to Ukraine than to where it is now (Poland GDP per capita PPP is 3x the Ukrainian).
Proven 5y ago
On the whole, they have no one to blame but themselves - they voted to join, and no one is even trying to leave like the UK did. They can organize a referendum and leave. That's unlikely to work for the same reason the US went down the shitter - by now too many voters, but especially all significant political parties, are addicted to various EU handouts. Everyone thinks their chance of stealing more through redistribution are better than striking out on their own. This will go on until it can't. Which will likely be when next crisis of confidence strikes one of the deadbeat eurozone countries.
RicoElectrico 5y ago
The CEE states have seen strong economic growth and they are treated in quite colonial fashion by the old EU. These things are not mutually exclusive. If anybody scratches their heads why PiS and Fidesz happened, that's one of the reasons why. Old EU can follow letter of the law, yet it's still evident that companies from CEE can't compete with those who can out-capital them, and who discriminate against them in a million subtle ways.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bsksi 5y ago
And the PIIGS countries also.
mmarq 5y ago
> In the East, meanwhile, the elites are shamed to silence, for they’re complicit in a population collapse of wartime scale. Croatia has lost almost a quarter of its people (an existential meltdown, one premier dared to moan). Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic three of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have seen a fifth of workers go. Poland has lost over a tenth. Are we saying that, say, the Polish state owns the Poles and if the latter go abroad they are stolen goods? The rest of the article seems to assume that Poland would be better off outside of the German value chain, which borders insanity.
- chuckee 5y ago
  > Are we saying that, say, the Polish state owns the Poles and if the latter go abroad they are stolen goods? Large amounts of educated (at taxpayer expense) people leaving a country is a problem, regardless of any claims of ownership. Or claims of duty to their country. But it is easier to argue that people aren't owned by their country (a claim present only in your rhetorical question, and absent from the article), than to argue that they have no duty towards it and their fellow countrymen. > The rest of the article seems to assume that Poland would be better off outside of the German value chain, which borders insanity. Does it? It seems to me it's pointing out the ways in which Eastern Europe is being exploited, and the claim that they'd be better off "outside the German value chain" is again purely your invention. Should they not complain until the situation is so bad they'd be worse off as an isolated economy competing alone against giant colluding countries and unions of countries? It's telling the only criticism you have is not for things the article says, but for what it seems to say or imply.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Not own, but since they invested billions into education that has seen a net negative return, there is reason to fret a downward spiral unless those that benefit rebalance the load.
  - mmarq 5y ago
    Yes, the local political class and elites should take responsibility and act so that people stop expatriating, if that’s really what they want. What the article suggests is that we blame the foreigner, ie the German and the Briton, because they allow educated Poles and Italians to earn a decent salary. Besides, in Poland we are starting to see a reversal, as the country keeps growing and becoming richer, net migration has become positive. So one may argue that Western Europe, while benefiting from the Polish workforce it imported, also acted as a relief valve for Polish unemployment, while the country was catching up with the west.
Viliam1234 5y ago
Are we Eastern Europeans supposed to cry that the Iron Curtain is no longer here to protect us from moving to places with higher quality of life?
- Proven 5y ago
  No, because everything is about you

24 points by chewz 5y ago

Are the non-EU states like Belarus and Ukraine really better off than CEE EU states? While the situation may not be ideal for the CEE EU states, the alternative doesn't seem great either.

smorgusofborg 5y ago
It seems like a hit piece to me. Nothing is compared to other brain drains that happen through out the global economy. In the EU system places like Prague and Tallinn have grown and reasonable amounts of money comes back with retirees in Europe. In countries with greater wealth inequality how do the brain drains play out?
beezischillin 5y ago
I don’t know what to say to that, other than to talk about my experience living in Eastern Eruope: about two of my friends are the ones who remained in the country, everyone else has gone to the west, whether Austria, Germany or the UK, they all understood that there’s a better life waiting for them there (with its own pros and cons, of course). So very few remain with the will and the courage to wish for a system that’s not corrupt and fundamentally broken. And not just the people in STEM. Natural resources are also increasingly leaving, whether legally or through bribes to officials. And the money, something which always gets thrown at Eastern Europe, how it benefits from incredible amounts of grants - that tends to end up in private pockets and not in restoration, infrastructure or innovation. Again, I can’t tell you what the way forward should be, because I don’t see it myself and I’m certainly not smart enough to imagine it, but what’s happening is certainly noticeable even to individuals.
- birbs 5y ago
  My point is that all those things happen in Belarus as well, except even worse. The average salary in Poland is around $1500 usd. In Belarus, it’s 300. In Ukraine, it’s around 800. Belarus is not immune from brain drain, either. Those who can leave, do leave. So the author should consider the alternative to joining the EU before calling the relationship exploitive.
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    I fully agree with your stance. I am from Romania, and, although there are still many things missing, things are, IMO, getting better. There might be some sort of colonial relationship going, but we are getting in return many things as well, and we have grassroots economic initiatives lately as well. The political system is still a mess, but where is it not? For me, personally, it would make little sense leaving the country. Biggest reason could be the education system sucking a lot compared to the much better education system somewhere in the EU, and this would become important once I have kids.
  - axnk 5y ago
    Average salary in Belarus is $579, in Minsk is $812 and for IT is $1824. Data for July 2021. Cost of living in Minsk is 2-3 times lower than in other EU capitals.
- mmarq 5y ago
  The same happens in Southern Europe and membership of the EU allowed me to get a 6-digit income and to live in a country where I don’t need a political affiliation to get a decent job and where the state bureaucracy is not merely a welfare system for government employees. I’m not sure I’d blame this state of affairs on the countries that decided to not be economic basket-cases. What should Germany do? Cut its productivity or destroy its value chains?
  - aiilns 5y ago
    Individually there are of course benefits to being able to go to richer countries. On the whole though it is obvious that a free market within the EU is vastly better for the large established industries of the west. An underdeveloped country can hardly compete with the likes of already huge corporations without some serious backing from the state. And even then it may be unfeasible. Of course you can blame Germany and other developed nations with established industries that while benefiting from educated immigrants and the free market within the EU don't care to give anything back, or even view this as problematic in any way.
    - mmarq 5y ago
      I don’t see this as problematic because, at least for Eastern European countries, the west absorbed some of their unemployment, while they were catching up, potentially reducing internal tensions and smoothing the transition to a modern high value-added economy. Access to the European market allowed them to become part of the German value-chain, which produced wealth and exported technology and know-how. All this while receiving transfers from the West to build infrastructure. I’m not sure what alternative scenario we could have had. I think that Poland outside the EU would have ended up closer to Ukraine than to where it is now (Poland GDP per capita PPP is 3x the Ukrainian).

Proven 5y ago

On the whole, they have no one to blame but themselves - they voted to join, and no one is even trying to leave like the UK did. They can organize a referendum and leave. That's unlikely to work for the same reason the US went down the shitter - by now too many voters, but especially all significant political parties, are addicted to various EU handouts. Everyone thinks their chance of stealing more through redistribution are better than striking out on their own. This will go on until it can't. Which will likely be when next crisis of confidence strikes one of the deadbeat eurozone countries.

RicoElectrico 5y ago

The CEE states have seen strong economic growth and they are treated in quite colonial fashion by the old EU. These things are not mutually exclusive. If anybody scratches their heads why PiS and Fidesz happened, that's one of the reasons why. Old EU can follow letter of the law, yet it's still evident that companies from CEE can't compete with those who can out-capital them, and who discriminate against them in a million subtle ways.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bsksi 5y ago

And the PIIGS countries also.

mmarq 5y ago

> In the East, meanwhile, the elites are shamed to silence, for they’re complicit in a population collapse of wartime scale. Croatia has lost almost a quarter of its people (an existential meltdown, one premier dared to moan). Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic three of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have seen a fifth of workers go. Poland has lost over a tenth. Are we saying that, say, the Polish state owns the Poles and if the latter go abroad they are stolen goods? The rest of the article seems to assume that Poland would be better off outside of the German value chain, which borders insanity.

chuckee 5y ago
> Are we saying that, say, the Polish state owns the Poles and if the latter go abroad they are stolen goods? Large amounts of educated (at taxpayer expense) people leaving a country is a problem, regardless of any claims of ownership. Or claims of duty to their country. But it is easier to argue that people aren't owned by their country (a claim present only in your rhetorical question, and absent from the article), than to argue that they have no duty towards it and their fellow countrymen. > The rest of the article seems to assume that Poland would be better off outside of the German value chain, which borders insanity. Does it? It seems to me it's pointing out the ways in which Eastern Europe is being exploited, and the claim that they'd be better off "outside the German value chain" is again purely your invention. Should they not complain until the situation is so bad they'd be worse off as an isolated economy competing alone against giant colluding countries and unions of countries? It's telling the only criticism you have is not for things the article says, but for what it seems to say or imply.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Not own, but since they invested billions into education that has seen a net negative return, there is reason to fret a downward spiral unless those that benefit rebalance the load.
- mmarq 5y ago
  Yes, the local political class and elites should take responsibility and act so that people stop expatriating, if that’s really what they want. What the article suggests is that we blame the foreigner, ie the German and the Briton, because they allow educated Poles and Italians to earn a decent salary. Besides, in Poland we are starting to see a reversal, as the country keeps growing and becoming richer, net migration has become positive. So one may argue that Western Europe, while benefiting from the Polish workforce it imported, also acted as a relief valve for Polish unemployment, while the country was catching up with the west.

Viliam1234 5y ago

Are we Eastern Europeans supposed to cry that the Iron Curtain is no longer here to protect us from moving to places with higher quality of life?

Proven 5y ago
No, because everything is about you