>Also, it's not a race we have to win. Life is not about becoming the richest.

It is, if you want to maintain the generous welfare and high standard of living the EU is used to. Where do you think that money comes from, the sky? It comes from having a world dominant economy. Without that, there's no more money for good wages, pensions and welfare and the people won't be happy with that.

Otherwise, the EU citizens will either have to be contempt to being poorer, OR, more likely, they'll vote another Austrian painter to power to upset the apple cart.

We don't need to get even richer is what I mean. It's fine.

I even moved to a lower wage country within the EU (about half as much as I would be able to make at home) to get a better quality of life. There's enough flex, we are still one of the richest regions in the world.

Also, a lot of costs scale with income anyway.