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The comment I replied to said this: > The EU justifies the high membership fees for the rich members by the benefits those rich members get - the poorer EU cou

The comment I replied to said this: > The EU justifies the high membership fees for the rich members by the benefits those rich members get - the poorer EU countries get invested in Which is just another way of saying "the benefit of paying the fees is that someone else gets them". That's not a benefit and membership fees aren't investments (you don't own anything as a result of paying them). Same for the rest of this thread. Other countries can align their laws without being given money, and should if those laws are better than their own. It's not a "benefit" to be paying them to fix their own legal systems. Cheap immigrant labour isn't a benefit to the workers in the country, minimum wage laws still apply anyway so the benefits even to rich people are limited, and you don't have to pay foreign countries to attract immigrants from them. They come regardless of what money their government is receiving. In fact big transfer payments make it less likely that they will want to migrate, not more. Finally, countries generally try to be stable locations for investment regardless of EU membership or receiving transfer payments. > We did. You may not have heard it, but we did. I don't think anyone did. If they did, then this thread doesn't reflect well on what they must have been saying because not a single argument in it for why fees are a "benefit" make any sense. It's common sense that fees are never a benefit, which is why free trade zones don't normally charge for membership. In fact AFAIK only the EU does that and that's because it's primarily an ideological project that needs huge sums of money for its other goals: free trade is just a carrot-cum-stick used to get countries to go along with it. > Incorrect. Closest you get is that there's a scheme called the "Blue Card" The Blue Card is an EU-level scheme with rules set by the Commission, and it only applies to people with "higher professional qualifications" and whose salary is higher than average. Obviously, nobody needs to pay billions in membership fees for the privilege of having random visa scheme imposed on them, any country that wants to can set up such a scheme itself. It's even named after a non-EU document. There is no immigration benefit to being an EU member. If you want to attract lots of migrants from poor EU countries, you can do that easily outside as well.

ben_w 2y ago
> Other countries can align their laws without being given money, and should if those laws are better than their own. "Better" presumes something which does not always exist. Sometimes "aligned" is itself the improvement — but aligned to whom? Why should, e.g. Bulgaria pick alignment with Parisian interests over alignment with Moscow's? But also, mere alignment is not sufficient: note that customs checks were introduced immediately after Brexit, because the requirement isn't simply to be aligned, but to have the force of international agreement over maintaining that alignment. > It's not a "benefit" to be paying them to fix their own legal systems. Compare and contrast with where this hasn't happened — there's a huge growth opportunity in many African nations since well before the end of the colonial era, so much of that potential is held back precisely because the legal systems there aren't able to prevent corruption. Making the investment in the legal system would make it possible to invest in the nations there, which would benefit both those nations (by having lots of money pouring in that doesn't immediately turn into a corrupt official's holiday home) and also the investors (who get a return on that investment). > Cheap immigrant labour isn't a benefit to the workers in the country, Oh yes it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect > minimum wage laws still apply anyway so the benefits even to rich people are limited, That benefits both sides of the equation: the workers from the poorer country get a boost, you get more people willing to work at (or near) that level. > and you don't have to pay foreign countries to attract immigrants from them. They come regardless of what money their government is receiving. Only when their qualifications are going to be recognised, when their health insurance options are valid, etc. — it isn't enough to just know how to be an electrician, you also need the local insurance company to sell you public liability insurance. > In fact big transfer payments make it less likely that they will want to migrate, not more. Only once the investments have actually converted into a real boost to the economy, thus paying for themselves. > Finally, countries generally try to be stable locations for investment regardless of EU membership or receiving transfer payments. The EU is a mechanism for doing that; that it isn't the only mechanism is irrelevant. > not a single argument in it for why fees are a "benefit" make any sense You're misreading this, I think. Fees pay for the benefits, they're not the benefits themselves. They one of the things that makes EU a place of growth. It's like all the discussions about USAID, except on your doorstep. Or, for that matter, any investment scheme your own government pays for out of taxes which are spent entirely within your own country, like highways — I benefit from the existence of a highway network, despite having only owned a car for a week total and that nearly a decade ago, this is like that. > Please re-read what I wrote, as this answer doesn't seem to make sense in context. Could say the same to you, on this, given you've ignored that: (1) The Blue Card scheme is not used by all EU nations (2) Each nation can set its own quotas for how many are issued — "As of August 2020, European countries vary wildly in the number of issued Blue Cards. Cyprus, Greece and Netherlands have not yet issued any cards," from my link (3) Each nation has its own additional visa scheme entirely separate from this (4) The Blue Card scheme was not "imposed", it was a voluntary streamlining (see #1) Your previous comment claimed, falsely: > a country can set its visa policy to attract however many migrants it wants if it's outside the EU, but not if it's inside. The countries absolutely can. And do. https://www.dw.com/en/german-immigration-policy-whats-changing-in-2024/a-67753472 https://www.dw.com/en/german-immigration-policy-whats-changi... I was showing you that the closest thing you had, the blue card, still wasn't what you claimed.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  I took the bit about re-reading out of my post as it was unnecessarily snarky. Still, we're clearly not seeing eye to eye here at all. Every "benefit" of the fees posited in this thread a country can have for free, other than the EU dropping tariffs. If a non-EU government wants to give foreign aid to Poland, it can. If it wants to invest in Romania (normal definition of invest), it can. If it wants to enable mass immigration of min-wage workers, it can. (and the UK government is doing so right now). If it wants to align its laws with those of the EU, it can. Not a single benefit in this thread is actually a benefit. EU membership fees are mandatory foreign aid European countries are expected to pay as a price of not being tariffed, and that's an artificial "benefit" that nobody else in the world charges for and that the EU also doesn't charge non-European countries for. I'm not going to get into an argument about who benefits from cheap labour, it's a different debate and well worn. On your other points: • The EU isn't a place of growth. Last year it managed GDP growth of 1%, the year before it was 0.4%. The US managed near 3% each time. It's scary that people living inside it aren't aware of this. EU growth should be higher than the US given that it contains countries still catching up from the communist era. • Blue Card is mandatory under EU law. It's "not used" by a few countries because it was forced on them with the loophole of there being no minimum issuance quotas, not because it's a voluntary scheme they didn't choose to sign up for. But once again, we seem to be talking at opposites here. What claim are you responding to with this Blue Card stuff? Is it the "not if it's inside" bit? Because to repeat, Blue Card doesn't let you attract as many migrants as you want if you're inside the EU - it has a legal requirement for higher-than-average salaries - and obviously it's not a benefit of paying membership fees, which is where this thread started.
  - seec 2y ago
    I have read the whole conversation and he just lives in an alternate reality. The EU has little benefits for the citizens of rich countries, expect for the dominant class, political and business, because they got more power in various different ways. Outside of that, it is a net loss for your average person and in fact the current events show very well the lie of its usefulness. Allegedly the EU is good because it gives its citizens a power comparable to the other big/rich countries like the US or China. But in fact, it is very weak on almost all fronts because it just built a dystopian bureaucratic system that only favored bureaucrat creation at the expense of everything else. It has terrible defense/army, terrible industry, terrible commercial balance in general, terrible innovation (the main reason of no tech stuff there) and more I can't think about right now... The only thing it has done "successfully" is legislate the shit out of everything, at great cost for everyone. And it didn't even allow to meet the idealistic goals (like the greenwashing and Germany's moronic "leadership" on that). The trade war ongoing highlight the inadequacy of the EU and the reality is that their arsenal for retaliation is rather thin, without hurting their own population that is.

ben_w 2y ago

> Other countries can align their laws without being given money, and should if those laws are better than their own. "Better" presumes something which does not always exist. Sometimes "aligned" is itself the improvement — but aligned to whom? Why should, e.g. Bulgaria pick alignment with Parisian interests over alignment with Moscow's? But also, mere alignment is not sufficient: note that customs checks were introduced immediately after Brexit, because the requirement isn't simply to be aligned, but to have the force of international agreement over maintaining that alignment. > It's not a "benefit" to be paying them to fix their own legal systems. Compare and contrast with where this hasn't happened — there's a huge growth opportunity in many African nations since well before the end of the colonial era, so much of that potential is held back precisely because the legal systems there aren't able to prevent corruption. Making the investment in the legal system would make it possible to invest in the nations there, which would benefit both those nations (by having lots of money pouring in that doesn't immediately turn into a corrupt official's holiday home) and also the investors (who get a return on that investment). > Cheap immigrant labour isn't a benefit to the workers in the country, Oh yes it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect > minimum wage laws still apply anyway so the benefits even to rich people are limited, That benefits both sides of the equation: the workers from the poorer country get a boost, you get more people willing to work at (or near) that level. > and you don't have to pay foreign countries to attract immigrants from them. They come regardless of what money their government is receiving. Only when their qualifications are going to be recognised, when their health insurance options are valid, etc. — it isn't enough to just know how to be an electrician, you also need the local insurance company to sell you public liability insurance. > In fact big transfer payments make it less likely that they will want to migrate, not more. Only once the investments have actually converted into a real boost to the economy, thus paying for themselves. > Finally, countries generally try to be stable locations for investment regardless of EU membership or receiving transfer payments. The EU is a mechanism for doing that; that it isn't the only mechanism is irrelevant. > not a single argument in it for why fees are a "benefit" make any sense You're misreading this, I think. Fees pay for the benefits, they're not the benefits themselves. They one of the things that makes EU a place of growth. It's like all the discussions about USAID, except on your doorstep. Or, for that matter, any investment scheme your own government pays for out of taxes which are spent entirely within your own country, like highways — I benefit from the existence of a highway network, despite having only owned a car for a week total and that nearly a decade ago, this is like that. > Please re-read what I wrote, as this answer doesn't seem to make sense in context. Could say the same to you, on this, given you've ignored that: (1) The Blue Card scheme is not used by all EU nations (2) Each nation can set its own quotas for how many are issued — "As of August 2020, European countries vary wildly in the number of issued Blue Cards. Cyprus, Greece and Netherlands have not yet issued any cards," from my link (3) Each nation has its own additional visa scheme entirely separate from this (4) The Blue Card scheme was not "imposed", it was a voluntary streamlining (see #1) Your previous comment claimed, falsely: > a country can set its visa policy to attract however many migrants it wants if it's outside the EU, but not if it's inside. The countries absolutely can. And do. https://www.dw.com/en/german-immigration-policy-whats-changing-in-2024/a-67753472 https://www.dw.com/en/german-immigration-policy-whats-changi... I was showing you that the closest thing you had, the blue card, still wasn't what you claimed.

mike_hearn 2y ago
I took the bit about re-reading out of my post as it was unnecessarily snarky. Still, we're clearly not seeing eye to eye here at all. Every "benefit" of the fees posited in this thread a country can have for free, other than the EU dropping tariffs. If a non-EU government wants to give foreign aid to Poland, it can. If it wants to invest in Romania (normal definition of invest), it can. If it wants to enable mass immigration of min-wage workers, it can. (and the UK government is doing so right now). If it wants to align its laws with those of the EU, it can. Not a single benefit in this thread is actually a benefit. EU membership fees are mandatory foreign aid European countries are expected to pay as a price of not being tariffed, and that's an artificial "benefit" that nobody else in the world charges for and that the EU also doesn't charge non-European countries for. I'm not going to get into an argument about who benefits from cheap labour, it's a different debate and well worn. On your other points: • The EU isn't a place of growth. Last year it managed GDP growth of 1%, the year before it was 0.4%. The US managed near 3% each time. It's scary that people living inside it aren't aware of this. EU growth should be higher than the US given that it contains countries still catching up from the communist era. • Blue Card is mandatory under EU law. It's "not used" by a few countries because it was forced on them with the loophole of there being no minimum issuance quotas, not because it's a voluntary scheme they didn't choose to sign up for. But once again, we seem to be talking at opposites here. What claim are you responding to with this Blue Card stuff? Is it the "not if it's inside" bit? Because to repeat, Blue Card doesn't let you attract as many migrants as you want if you're inside the EU - it has a legal requirement for higher-than-average salaries - and obviously it's not a benefit of paying membership fees, which is where this thread started.
- seec 2y ago
  I have read the whole conversation and he just lives in an alternate reality. The EU has little benefits for the citizens of rich countries, expect for the dominant class, political and business, because they got more power in various different ways. Outside of that, it is a net loss for your average person and in fact the current events show very well the lie of its usefulness. Allegedly the EU is good because it gives its citizens a power comparable to the other big/rich countries like the US or China. But in fact, it is very weak on almost all fronts because it just built a dystopian bureaucratic system that only favored bureaucrat creation at the expense of everything else. It has terrible defense/army, terrible industry, terrible commercial balance in general, terrible innovation (the main reason of no tech stuff there) and more I can't think about right now... The only thing it has done "successfully" is legislate the shit out of everything, at great cost for everyone. And it didn't even allow to meet the idealistic goals (like the greenwashing and Germany's moronic "leadership" on that). The trade war ongoing highlight the inadequacy of the EU and the reality is that their arsenal for retaliation is rather thin, without hurting their own population that is.