Economic zones are NOT zero sum.

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.