A period of economic stagnation that has lasted for almost an entire generation at this point seems like a rather high price to pay for that stagnation. Surely there must be some balance?

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kergonath 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, there must be some balance and things should be streamlined. It’s counterproductive to have a country like Hungary stall completely on some subjects despite an otherwise unanimous agreement, for example (mostly on defence in this case). And defence is a weak spot. So is the pitiful diplomatic weight outside of technical trade discussions.

At the same time, there are things to keep in mind:

- this is asking member-states to delegate some of their sovereignty, which is never all easy and always involves quite a bit of horse-trading

- the member-states are perfectly happy to fuck things up on their own and things like growth figures for the eurozone actually mask very different realities depending on the country and its government

- stagnation is a very western point of view, things are still changing quite a lot on the eastern side

- the reference point should be the same situation without the EU. I am not sure, for example, that things would be improved with a trade war between Germany and France, the baltics fending off for themselves, or each country having its own import requirements and sets of tariffs.

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wqaatwt a day ago | parent [-]

The single market and tariff free trade existed long before the EU was technically a thing. I do certainly agree about east vs west, though.

I do also strongly believe that the Eurozone or a rather a monetary union without a fiscal union hasn’t been the best idea as far as south-north goes.

And then you have countries which are doing quite well despite retaining their free-floating currency.

	▲	kergonath a day ago \| parent [-]
		> The single market and tariff free trade existed long before the EU was technically a thing. I do certainly agree about east vs west, though. They existed long before the EU was called the EU, but that is misleading. Both the customs union and the common market were created in 1957 with the European economic community, which got a new name and a coat of paint to become the EU in 1993. Both are fundamental parts of the European project. They would not exist without the EU and the EU would not exist without them.

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saubeidl 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Poland's GDP has increased by 500% since 2000.

	▲	wqaatwt a day ago \| parent [-]
		Well yes and Italy is still below its 2008 peak. It’s rather implicitly obvious that when someone is talking about stagnation they mean Western Europe. Poland is an interesting case in that you can retain a free floating currency and your own monetary policy and still do quite well.