EU reality and challenges.

[zasad@]

If I'm not confused, the biggest contributions to the EU budget were paid by Germany, France and Italy. In 4th place was England, but they were tired of it. It ended with Brexit
The European Union was created almost 28 years ago to address the problems of the time. Maybe Italy, too, think to follow the path of England.
3 strong economies will feed several dozen countries, how long will it take for the leading EU countries to get tired of it?

To begin with, let me ask you how much is a fully trained doctor or scientist educated somewhere in the east of the EU worth to Germany or Italy? If we look from that perspective, then the most valuable commodities are actually the people the Western EU is crying out for (at least that was the case before this crisis). Money from those countries cannot pay for the damage they actually cause to those same countries - not to mention that their banks and companies like shopping malls make enormous profits that they send to their home countries, while at the same time creating low-paid jobs.

The EU was actually created much earlier, formally as early as 1958 (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, West Germany), and what you are referring to is called Maastricht Treaty.

I can also give a similar example and ask how much does it cost to train a doctor in Uzekistan? So in Russia, an Uzbek doctor in a private clinic can earn 12-15 times more in a month than he earns in a private clinic in Uzbekistan.
And if you compare the salary with a state clinic, the difference will be huge.

I understand that the European Union was created because the developing countries needed cheap labor and preferably from other European countries, but now we are seeing other problems.

[pixie85]

why should people in Bucharest, who have less clean energy than the Dutch and more coal-based power plants have the same CO2 emission limits?
Taxes are still different but I feel like they are increasing more rapidly in the Eastern Europe due to EU regulations.

The share of sustainably generated electricity in total Dutch electricity consumption was 13.8 percent in 2017
The structure of electricity production of Romania in 2019 was provided by 26.75% – hydro-energy 12.09% – wind power

You were saying?
Actually, the Netherlands lags behind a lot of countries when it comes to energy.

Yet they are burning much less coal than other countries like Romania that we were talking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Romania#/media/File:Graph_Romania_electricity_supply_mix_2010.svg

As you can see in the above chart 33% of Romania's energy is produced from coal. In the Netherlands (first from the left) they rely on solid fuels only in 11% and mostly burn gas and oil.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marc_Makkes/publication/259573353/figure/fig5/AS:341805276123145@1458504136969/Energy-production-mix-for-a-the-Netherlands-b-Germany-and-c-Austria.png

My point is that we should not compare numbers but realize that each country is different and utilizes different resources. It doesn't matter if one year Romania produces more CO2 and the other year it's the Netherlands. We shouldn't force them to fit into some kind of average production boundaries.

[stompix]

As you can see in the above chart 33% of Romania's energy is produced from coal. In the Netherlands (first from the left) they rely on solid fuels only in 11% and mostly burn gas and oil.

I've had this discussion previously with another member, that chart is from 2010.
You simply picked off of the western countries the one that sounds tempting because of all the bikes stuff to be a model of the pollution-free country but it isn't, second, the graph you've posted is for "energy" used, and that includes a lot of oil because cars and machines burn oil too, it's not just power plants, same for the fertilizing industry that also burn a lot of energy that's not electric energy, out of 1200 PJ of energy consumption only 100 is electric.

Let's keep it simple:

Dutch coal-fired power plants generated only 17 TWh in 2019

Romania has barely 50 Twh of the entire consumption.

Just replace the Netherlands with Switzerland or Sweden and that's all.

My point is that we should not compare numbers but realize that each country is different and utilizes different resources. It doesn't matter if one year Romania produces more CO2 and the other year it's the Netherlands. 

Of course, I don't give a damn about that, my point was not it's not nice to put labels on things, Romania is that the Netherlands is that, misconceptions like this when people in an already pretty fragmented union are labeling other countries just because they think things are like that over there are not helping at all.

I understand that the European Union was created because the developing countries needed cheap labor and preferably from other European countries, but now we are seeing other problems.

No, it wasn't created for cheap labor, actually, the entire Western Europe was a member of the EU before the fall of the Warsaw pact, with Spain and Portugal joining last in 1986, you couldn't get cheap labor from the eastern block at that time, and they wouldn't have waited till 2017 to let Romania and Bulgaria join, the purpose was to strengthen the relations between the western block to prevent a ww3. With the UK/FR/DE/IT heavily interlinked there would be no easy way for them to cut all ties and rush into armed conflict.

[justdimin]

I am pretty sure in the end EU will disband one day, for something much better to get its place. Probably UN will also do that as well because they are useless. EU was created, and euro money was created to manage all nations under one roof economically and get them all powerful, and lets be honest Europe is still by far one of the biggest players in world economics, with china and USA they consist the top 3 of the world.

When you pull them apart and say Germany, or Spain, or France basically just name them individually, you can't make it top 3, it would be highly difficult, maaaaybe you can put UK or Germany but that would be it, but when you combine all of their power that creates a huge profit for them. So basically EU and UN will definitely stop existing in the future but the idea will stand, something better will come along to bring them all together.

[bits4books]

The main problem of the EU began on the day when they said that "we welcome all refugees, welcome".
All that is happening to them now is quite an expected result of the policy of friendliness to migrants. This is billions of money going to waste on useless people who do not want to work, do not want to assimilate and want to build another Pakistan and destroy everything that white great Europe has built for so long and with love.
As long as this continues, it will get worse.

[fiulpro]

I do believe that if we are talking about the pandemic every state and every country they are just trying to cope up beat according to themselves. They won't follow any laws right now , you cannot expect them too , The new mutated form of Virus in the UK is a cause of massive concern.

The main problem of the EU began on the day when they said that "we welcome all refugees, welcome".
All that is happening to them now is quite an expected result of the policy of friendliness to migrants. This is billions of money going to waste on useless people who do not want to work, do not want to assimilate and want to build another Pakistan and destroy everything that white great Europe has built for so long and with love.
As long as this continues, it will get worse.

Honestly I do believe that they did that so that they could actually expand their empire , they wanted to rule without having any wars or anything we don't live in th 10th century anymore so that's what they did. They just wanted to feel big and at the same time have control over it. After this matter of time it was just the war between EU and the UN internally about which one's bigger , stronger , better.


EU might not disband one day :-
But many countries might leave the EU one by one since they are better developed now as compared to before , so they might leave but EU itself won't ever be broken by the main party.

You need to understand their mentality deeper , they don't want to appear weak.

[DrBeer]

The problems of the EU were laid down even when this union was created. Key issues:
- Different levels of economies of the members of the union. It is difficult to compare the efficiency of, for example, the German economy and, for example, Cyprus (please do not be offended, but this is a fact)
- Various approaches to ensuring economic stability. Systematic approaches designed for decades to come, again by the same Germany, and situational management, such as in Spain, or, for example, Cyprus
- A huge mistake that some countries have made in relation to emigrants, especially from Asian and African countries. This applies primarily to France. If recently the French economy was one of the leaders of Europe, then in recent years the economy has been destroyed, including due to the enormous social burden that is generated by huge flows of emigrants, which in fact are ballast for the country.
- Also one of the problems is the expectations of the "weak" EU members of permanent financial assistance from the EU. And this is a destructive financial burden on large participants, such as Germany. This is UNION and these are obligations. It turns out that some work 24 * 7, others sit and wait for more effective countries to help them.
- There are external factors of confrontation, at least in the US / EU / RF triangle. Russia, losing its positions in Europe (their economy is essentially resource-based and depends on how much they sell hydrocarbons to the EU), is trying to destabilize the EU in order to remove inconvenient politicians, change the internal policy of the EU, and regain its position in the European energy market.
- At the same time, the EU is flirting with tolerance and soft decisions, which does not allow making important and harsh decisions, for tough adjustment of the situation

[Hydrogen]

What exactly is the future of the EU if we take into account that large members like Italy and Spain are in a very unenviable position, and some better members are increasingly refusing to give money to what we could call bottomless holes?

EU member states in recent times resembled riddles wrapped in enigmas via their somewhat contradictory nature. Spain was praised for cutting edge drug decriminalization policies which received a million times more media exposure in contrast to spain's 50% youth unemployment rate. Sweden was praised for pro herd immunity COVID policies which received a million times more media exposure than sweden having the highest percentage population with microchips embedded beneath the skin to conduct financial transactions. Universal healthcare is praised the world over with little mentioned of european politicians habitually blaming underfunding for an apparent systemic inability to cut costs.

EU member states could be defined by glowing media praise eclipsing darker and perhaps more sinister eventualities.

The american economic structure could be described as a ticking debt time bomb. Liabilities associated with programs like social security will inevitably grow at a faster pace than tax revenues. Unless massive and fundamental restructuring changes are made. The economy of the EU could be the same. It is difficult to know. To see past the media's glowing and exuberant praise of the situation.

[DrBeer]

What exactly is the future of the EU if we take into account that large members like Italy and Spain are in a very unenviable position, and some better members are increasingly refusing to give money to what we could call bottomless holes?

EU member states in recent times resembled riddles wrapped in enigmas via their somewhat contradictory nature. Spain was praised for cutting edge drug decriminalization policies which received a million times more media exposure in contrast to spain's 50% youth unemployment rate. Sweden was praised for pro herd immunity COVID policies which received a million times more media exposure than sweden having the highest percentage population with microchips embedded beneath the skin to conduct financial transactions. Universal healthcare is praised the world over with little mentioned of european politicians habitually blaming underfunding for an apparent systemic inability to cut costs.

EU member states could be defined by glowing media praise eclipsing darker and perhaps more sinister eventualities.

The american economic structure could be described as a ticking debt time bomb. Liabilities associated with programs like social security will inevitably grow at a faster pace than tax revenues. Unless massive and fundamental restructuring changes are made. The economy of the EU could be the same. It is difficult to know. To see past the media's glowing and exuberant praise of the situation.

Very well said and noticed regarding the EU! Thank you !
I will only correct about the USA - their obligations, social programs and others are not a "time bomb", because they have the tools to easily disarm such "bombs" - the printing press and the dollar as the blood of the world economy. They can fill the American market with any amount of money, solving any internal problems, and the world financial system based on the dollar will neutralize and make such steps safe.

[RealMalatesta]

What EU needs is some sort of fiscal branch as well as economical branch. I mean they did managed to get together in some cases, which is fine and great and they even created their own currency as well which was awesome to do, however each nation has different sort of economy whereas they all have the same money, which created a problem between all the nations.

So that was always the big problem, no fiscal joint together but fiat was the same, which meant that bad economy nations could never reach to good economy nations and will be a poor nation and can't recover easy whereas the good ones could not be great because their money was tied to bad ones as well. So, I would have to say it was never really proper planning for something like this, and that is why it is never going to be easy to manage this forever, there will always be problems.

[Lucius]

The main problem of the EU began on the day when they said that "we welcome all refugees, welcome".

I would not agree that refugees are the main problem, there have been problems before the big wave of refugees - but I agree that it was completely wrong to invite so many people to the EU, and most of them refuse to work, behave extremely inappropriately and are nothing more than burden and danger. According to some analyzes, about 10% of immigrants are extremely problematic in the sense that they are in some way radicalized, that they are involved in crime and that they are extremely violent towards the local population.

Here we come to the question of why did Germany act in such a way as to send an open invitation to all of them? Of course, they counted on a lot of cheap labor, but as it turned out later most refugees had fake diplomas they bought in Turkey - so we have thousands of fake doctors, engineers, teachers, developers and so on. I am of the opinion that those responsible for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and other countries should take care of all these refugees - but obviously they have very good servants in the heart of the EU who pursued a continuation of their policy of forced relocation.

[GeorgeJohn]

Every government have ninety nine percent (99%) right to sale their property in order to develop their country, so actually development is major priority of country in order to be firm, now I have no seem anything wrong concerning country selling what them have, shall I agree with op in other way round.

[Hydrogen]

Very well said and noticed regarding the EU! Thank you !
I will only correct about the USA - their obligations, social programs and others are not a "time bomb", because they have the tools to easily disarm such "bombs" - the printing press and the dollar as the blood of the world economy. They can fill the American market with any amount of money, solving any internal problems, and the world financial system based on the dollar will neutralize and make such steps safe.

Imagine a scenario where liabilities of social programs grow 20% annually. While tax revenues grow 5% or less. Inevitably a point is reached where liabilities and debt become unsustainable. The history of programs like social security are defined by this precedent. Which is why every 10 to 20 years social security taxes must be hiked to cover ever growing costs. The program's survival over decades gives it an illusion of sustainability. But inevitably we'll reach a point where taxes can no longer be hiked higher to cover costs and default will occur.

Some say the US can print money or militarily steal from foreign nations to cover costs. My thoughts on the topic:

#1  Money printing leads to hyperinflation
#2  War in the middle east costed trillions of dollars more than it profited, which could make war an unprofitable enterprise

In past years the comptroller of the GAO (government accountability office) did a nation wide public tour where he gave lectures and presentations on the dire situation of US deficit and taxes.

Walker: Growing Deficit Threatens Our Future

David Walker, former comptroller general of the U.S. and former head of the Government Accountability Office, says drastic decisions have yet to be made about spending cuts and taxes that would realign the federal budget. Walker tells Deborah Amos that the country's financial condition is much worse than advertised, and the growing deficit threatens our future. Walker is the author of Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122436097

I took what he said on this topic back in 2010 very seriously.

But I think no one else did.

[bits4books]

The main problem of the EU began on the day when they said that "we welcome all refugees, welcome".

I would not agree that refugees are the main problem, there have been problems before the big wave of refugees - but I agree that it was completely wrong to invite so many people to the EU, and most of them refuse to work, behave extremely inappropriately and are nothing more than burden and danger. According to some analyzes, about 10% of immigrants are extremely problematic in the sense that they are in some way radicalized, that they are involved in crime and that they are extremely violent towards the local population.

Here we come to the question of why did Germany act in such a way as to send an open invitation to all of them? Of course, they counted on a lot of cheap labor, but as it turned out later most refugees had fake diplomas they bought in Turkey - so we have thousands of fake doctors, engineers, teachers, developers and so on. I am of the opinion that those responsible for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and other countries should take care of all these refugees - but obviously they have very good servants in the heart of the EU who pursued a continuation of their policy of forced relocation.

It's one thing when you have in your country just hang out some migrants in small numbers and add up to a small marginal layer.
And another thing is when you yourself invite everyone who has a bullet flying past the border and think that it will end well. Germany shot itself in both legs, and at the same time all the other EU countries.