The question is not whether it is an investment or whether it is not.

The question is whether growth is objective and fair or whether it is not.

For comparison of wealth in Poland, ALL net-subsidies would have to be deducted, because this is essentially wealth taken from other countries, and distributed to poorer areas in the EU. I am not disputing that this leads to more growth; I am disputing the "country xyz is now rich" while not even mentioning the subsidies. And that reuters article does not mention that at all.

It also has to be mentioned because the crazy bureaucrats in Brussels want to aggressively expand eastwards. They think that the richer areas in the EU need to pay for that expansion. I simply fail to agree with that "logic" at all and I also consider it hugely unfair to richer areas. The richer areas made good decisions; now this is being negated by bureaucrats in Brussels. That is unfair. (This is not meant against Poland, but against the constant expansionistic agenda from Brussels.)

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gmerc 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Economic zones are NOT zero sum.

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finghin 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I agree, but people are very weary of these things because of the (correct) belief that their appropriation is guided by unaccountable bureaucrats. It stands in need of justification that Europeans feel they never got to hear

	▲	dgellow 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> but people are very weary of these things because of the (correct) belief that their appropriation is guided by unaccountable bureaucrats. People believe this because every single member state is using EU institutions as a punching bag whenever they have issues locally. The people have no idea how the EU work, they only hear about it when used as a bogeyman

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sdwr 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And the EU wants to insulate itself from Russia with friendly, ideologically-compatible countries. Can't put a price tag on safety

	▲	rob74 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That also works the other way around: Eastern European countries wanted to join the EU (ok, more importantly NATO, but also the EU) to make sure they never ever again slid into Russia's "sphere of influence". Notwithstanding certain populist EU-skeptic right wing parties that don't seem to mind that anymore (some would say because they are financed by Russia), that's generally still true...

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nkmnz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree, but subsidies aren't free as well. Simply making the overall cake bigger doesn't necessarily pay out for everyone - some have to foot the bill.

	▲	phicoh 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Why not? If the increase in cake size is bigger than the subsidies then it can be a net win, even for the people paying the subsidies. It also ignores the fact that absent the EU, countries would still have a lot of subsidies.

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rob74 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

OTOH, the more developed EU countries want the less developed countries to be reasonably well-off, so they can keep buying stuff from them. E.g. 56% of Germany's exports went to other EU countries in 2025. And, while Trump and Xi Jin Ping are around, that's only going to become more important...

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tw1984 3 hours ago | parent [-]

"56% of Germany's exports went to other EU countries in 2025" - because those products are no longer competitive in the open market.

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rob74 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, they're so uncompetitive that Trump had to introduce tariffs to keep them out. China is a different topic, but I wouldn't generally call German products uncompetitive...

	▲	vovavili an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Trump introduced tarrifs because of insane economic and political illiteracy and for no other reason.

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paganel 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The Holocaust was a decision taken by one of the two pillars of the EU, Germany, so countries nowadays being rich or poor has nothing to do with past “good” decisions of those countries populaces. And before anyone commenting that the Holocaust and the German economy are two orthogonal subjects, just look at the corporate history of German industry giants VW and Bayer.

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egeozcan 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The richer areas made good decisions; now this is being negated by bureaucrats in Brussels

Imperialism and stealing from Jews were also among those "good" decisions. Yes I know it's not all bad, but neither is it all good. It's very reductionist to describe the imbalance like this.