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This is a direct result of national politics. EU member states want all the benefits of integration without giving anything up, especially things that they con
by oblio 2mo ago
This is a direct result of national politics.
EU member states want all the benefits of integration without giving anything up, especially things that they consider aspects of national sovereignty.
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I'll give you an example.
I'm from Romania. In Romania in 1990 there were no private enterprises, so everything was state owned. There was a HUGE demand for commerce/retail, so small local businesses popped up. They were very basic because everything was brand new and expertise was extremely scarce. No one knew anything about modern supermarkets, supermarket chains, banks, loans, credit lines, basically everything related to modern market economies.
As Romanian headed for EU integration, foreign invested started... investing. In retail that meant that because Romania is fairly populous by EU standards, everyone was tempted by a potentially big and growing pie that was almost void of serious competition.
So we ended up with Lidl (German), Kaufland (German), Metro (German), Carrefour (French), Mega Image (Romanian, bought by Delhaize: Belgian), DM (German), Cora (French), Auchan (French), Profi (Romanian, bought by Delhaize: Belgian), Selgros (Swiss), Penny (bought by REWE: German), etc.
I moved abroad somewhere close to both France and Germany. At a company I worked for, I had both French and German coworkers.
At some point the Germans were talking about Kaufland and I started chatting with them about it. Some French people mentioned Auchan and I replied to that too. After a few more replies about German and French supermarket chains, one of them said: how do you know so much about both French and German supermarket chains?
And I told them:
We're right next to Germany and German supermarkets stop at the border. There is no Aldi in France. Most French people in the neighboring French towns haven't even been in an Aldi.
We're also next to France and French supermarkets stop at the border. There is no Carrefour in Germany. Most German people in the neighboring German towns haven't even been in a Carrefour.
In Romania your big companies bought everything local (or displaced it), there are hardly any locally owned stores so I guess the upside is that I know all your supermarket chains.
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Repeat this for banking, IT, whatever. Europe is super economically segregated even with the EU operating. Each country has all sort of hidden protections for its local businesses. I can't really tell you what they are exactly, but in practice you can feel them. Each country has its own version of X, Y, Z businesses. Small versions of everything, instead of few really big and competitive businesses at a global level.
This even impacts US companies. You can't get a European Netflix subscription. You fly from Romania to France and when you land and connect your tablet to the internet, your Romanian Netflix account switches over to France and they delete Mad Men from your downloaded episodes because Netflix France hasn't licensed Mad Men (old example).
- sajithdilshan 2mo agoI think this is true for a lot of Balkan countries that joined EU. I was in Croatia recently and was super surprised to see Lidl and DM stores there. Even more surprised to see the prices of items in those stores were almost same as in Berlin
- tietjens 2mo agoVery interesting! Also, I would trade Aldi for Carrefour in less than a second.
- ahartmetz 2mo agoThey aren't in the same category of supermarket though. Anyway, your name sounds Dutch. Please bring Albert Heijn to Germany. I'm not even sure why, but it's my favorite supermarket I've been to so far.
- tietjens 2mo agoThat's true. I'd trade Lidl for Carrefour then. I like Albert Heijn too. It's like a successful mix of the grocery store tiers.
- sam_lowry_ 2mo agoHeh... Albert Heijn can not even cross the border between Flanders and Brussels. There are literally two Albert Heijns across the street from Brussels, but if they open shop in Brussels or Wallonia, they will have to provide packaging in French next to Dutch.
- ahartmetz 2mo agoThey made a really small attempt in Germany some years ago. Germany is tough for supermarkets.
- DanielHB 2mo agoLanguage, payroll-rules and tax-rules alone can be enough to prevent a business from expanding into a market. Even when there is no foul intent, just different set of rules. I am from Brazil and it is not unusual for companies to operate only within certain states because of this. Even though Brazil is a single country with a single language and mostly federal rules about things, there is still enough variance of laws from one state to another to cause problems. Then you hear about Canada which has tariffs between its own provinces, but not to the US. Meaning some products are cheaper across the US border than across a province border. Figuring out how much to pay in taxes alone can be a blocker... This is not an EU-only problem, any large single market will have friction in its internal divisions. It tends to be worse in the EU because the countries have a lot more sovereignty though (enforcement agencies tend to be local, not federal for example).