> Experts say the adoption of the euro will help protect Croatia’s economy at a time when inflation has been soaring globally since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February led to heightened fuel and food prices.
Wikipedia notes that the kuna has been pegged to the euro for some time:
> The modern kuna was introduced on May 30, 1994, starting a period of transition from the Croatian dinar, introduced in 1991, which ended on December 31, 1994.[10] One kuna was equivalent to 1,000 dinars at a fixed exchange rate. The kuna was pegged to the German mark from the start. With the replacement of the mark by the euro, the kuna's peg effectively switched to the euro.
So I doubt there will be much effect on the rate of inflation after the switch.
I am from the area (not Croatian tho). Even if you look just at the map of the country you will realize that Croatia is basically mostly Mediterranean. As such tourism is very important for the region.
Having the same currency as your tourists (mostly people from the north, to a lesser extent people from the east and northeast) helps a lot.
Schengen helps also, but even before people could just drive there without noticing the border.
Schengen and Euro definitely put Croatia on my list of destinations. It’s much more comfortable to travel without having to bother with exchange rates.
No passport control at the airport is also a nice bonus. I can’t describe that feeling when I travel to another country without going through border checks, it’s so liberating.
> Schengen helps also, but even before people could just drive there without noticing the border.
Not during the summer. There were usually big queues at border crossings during every summer weekend. This should alleviate that a bit - the pressure will just move elsewhere in the road network, but will hopefully be easier to manage.
It will help the locals tremendously because their income will now be in the same currency as most of their debts. This trick has been used by banks all over the eurozone: charge the debt to the locals in euros but they can only earn income in the local currency. So if the local currency slides against the euro - as they invariably do - a larger and larger fraction of the income goes to servicing the debt. Even Poland still suffers from this today.
The peg usually is in the period just before the switch to the euro, if the period is longer then invariably the peg breaks and the local currency will slide, sometimes quite a bit in a very short period.
Yes. But Denmark could have easily joined in all those years, they chose not to and that's their right. But for countries struggling to keep parity with the Euro today being in the Euro would have immediate advantage (Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and to a lesser extent Hungary and Czechia). Denmark negotiated an exception and the fact that in 22 years it hasn't made any difference in terms of valuation means that they simply missed out on some international commerce.
> But for countries struggling to keep parity with the Euro today being in the Euro would have immediate advantage (... Czechia)
ČNB actually intentionally weakened CZK in 2013 and for several years after. And in the long term CZK appreciates against EUR rather than the opposite.
> The peg usually is in the period just before the switch to the euro
> if the period is longer then invariably
That totally incorrect for most currencies in the countries which joined the EU in 2004 or later. The Croatian Kuna was never free floating and pegged to the Euro/DM since it was introduced 1994.
Depended on the bank. Quite a few in Euros, some in other currencies, even USD. But if you wanted your mortgage in Zloty then suddenly the interest was twice as high.
Hmmm so banks offered a choice to be a forex speculator, and some took the lower interest rate bait. The risk is dramatic forex moves which make it near impossible to make payments.
The inflation in the last couple of months has been very high. The price of groceries (and pretty much everything else) has been increased at least by 35% and climbing with no end in sight. A lot of basic stuff doubled in price. It is maddness, but the government is saying that economy is great which is a fat lie.
Inflation is a sign of a good economy - it means people can afford price increases ie they are employed. (But it really annoys everyone because wages don’t grow as quickly as prices.)
A recession (“bad economy”) tends to stop inflation because people stop spending.
My Google search says Croatia CPI inflation is 13% YoY. Which is something but not 35%.
And you can’t take Argentina or Japan as examples for anything. (Basically, Argentina just doesn’t work no matter what and Japan works no matter what.)
They should probably give up on having a country and move back to Spain.
I didn't say that the inflation is 35%, I just took the spot prices of groceries I usually buy and those are that much higher compared to months previous.
There is no beating around the bush, the economic situation is far from good. Walking outside, seeing normal, retired people dumpster diving collecting empty bottles makes me depressed because I can easily see myself doing the same when my time comes.
> There is no beating around the bush, the economic situation is far from good. Walking outside, seeing normal, retired people dumpster diving collecting empty bottles makes me depressed because I can easily see myself doing the same when my time comes.
This is the part that most people who want to take a single sector that benefits them and project it on to the rest of the economy need to understand; as someone who has spend time in HR before it was in the EU, when it was on the HRK/non-schengen and then as it was announced (rather late in '22) that it would be entering a year ahead of schedule it's hard to wrap my head around this false reality they've been painting. I've both worked and lived there (as a US citizen) for a total of 3.5 years and just how normalized things like that are, and variations of these kind of things, is what I took away with the most as the date got closer.
Lots of things look like the rest of the EU, and thanks to Chinese hot money flowing into E. European markets lots of it has a very thin veneer of looking as you said 'normal.' But if you stay outside the tourist season you will get a very clear look of how things really are and it's stark if you are not of the upper-middle class who own properties and has multi-generational privilege--as someone mentioned, the massive drain is just beginning with 10% of the population leaving in 10 years,some of my close friends being some of them. The cost of surviving in a tourist based economy has always been difficult, COVID really hurt many regions hard and never really recovered, which led to more consolidation to already wealthy and often foreign property owners etc...
My last year was under the digital nomad visa program there, not bordering hopping as I had before, and I even had to get an OIB number etc... as I became a resident, and the truth is the government is still culpable of a lot of the post war 'Baltic mindset' thinking that still holds lots of things back--even for their own population. I don't see many things getting better in that regard to be honest, because even when it is in their own interest they are either too ossified to adapt (the public sector is filled with older age lifers) to a newer EU standard or seem to just ignore it until the problem goes away.
I love Croatians and their culture but now really only enjoy myself in Dalmatia anymore after spending lots of time around the country, and while I wish them well in this as it can help the youth have better career prospects I cannot see how it will not lead to more of the same and it will likely end up like Slovenia (massive brain drain due to the high COL relative the wages) and ultimately end up like Portugal.
the opinion i read was from a croatian minister warning retailers about this phenomenon especially in a high inflation environment where products will increase in prices no matter what.
This is disappointing as a foreign traveler, since it helps to have stable friendly countries in Europe outside of the Schengen you can go to during times you want to reset your visa timer. For me, one of my favorite destinations for this was Croatia, where honestly you could use euros to pay for things much of the time anyway, although I mostly used a card so it auto-converted to kuna as necessary.
With this change, it means to be outside the Schengen you must now either go to less stable/safe countries, or go to the UK which is very expensive. I think you still have the option to go to Bulgaria to stay in the EU without being in Schengen, but otherwise I guess the next best option now in Montenegro, however I'm not sure how stable it is currently since it primarily existed on a tourist economy serving Russians.
While your point is valid, I can't help but smile. I men, first world problems?
It does however highlight how things that are of benefit to millions, (or at least, hopefully of benefit to those millions) can have unexpected (?) impact on the few.
As a completely alternate anecdote, I'm planning to attend a conference there in 2024,and this change has made it a lot more attractive :)
> As a completely alternate anecdote, I'm planning to attend a conference there in 2024,and this change has made it a lot more attractive :)
I've visited Croatia about a million times in 2012-2022 (that includes pre-EU), and the border controls were almost always a non-story. They'd see the cover of an EU passport (or even the car plates) and would just wave at us to go through.
I was stopped once to have my bag searched for drugs, because you know, long hair = obviously must be smuggling drugs. But that happened near other borders too (even inside Schengen; I used to hitch hike a lot).
The change has pretty much no impact on EU countries or a countries with a visa arrangement with Schengen however it made visiting Croatia for countries without a Schengen visa agreement much more difficult.
I actually wonder if it would end up being a net benefit or not because of its impact on tourism from Asia and MENA.
As a holder of a not popular passport, it’s great that now I can visit Croatia without going through an additional lengthy and expensive visa application process.
I beg to differ. I was on a road trip in Bosnia once, and I will never go inside a car in that country again. Roads are poor. Speed limits are more like a rough suggestion. The local drivers are absolutely insane: they take over really aggressively, even with traffic coming from the opposite direction. I thought everything was just "ok standard crazy" (I've lived in Greece, Croatia, etc so I had an idea), until our car was taken over in a narrow tunnel, on a right curve - the driver behind us (or the guy on the opposite lane) would've had ZERO chance.
Where did you live in Croatia? Because Croatian drivers are exactly the same as that, and even worse are the Slovenians who drive here. I recently avoided certain death by a fraction of a second because some idiot decided to overtake half a kilometer of cars around a blind curve at 120km/h.
Roads are probably better in Croatia but the drivers are most certainly not.
I lived in Zagreb & area, trips further east were very occasional, but we visited the coast regularly. Highways and better roads do help a lot, it's also an observation I've had when living in Poland, where the highway infrastructure has been around for a while, but many people still remember the old roads. You're in a hurry, but the road is bad, so you drive more aggressively, because the bad road & conditions slow you down. But as the roads improve, you get used to getting somewhere in X time consistently and without hassle, so there's no point in driving like crazy. Another friend living in Poland has also observed that a lot of traffic accidents in the past few years involved Ukrainian drivers, which would make sense if their road infrastructure is less developed = they still feel the need to drive more aggressively.
Unfortunately the main highway from Zagreb towards the coast is regularly subject to traffic jams in the summer, which definitely doesn't help. But overall I'd still say it's a radically safer place to drive than Bosnia, I've seen more insane drivers in 2 days there than in ~2 years of Croatia.
A lot of tourists go to Croatia for it's beaches and coastal towns. Even though Bosnia and Herzegovina has a tiny bit of coast, it is a classic inland country.
Concerning safety, you often have trouble communicating with locals, (comparatively) high corruption and an unstable economy. They are steadily improving but are not quite at the same level as Croatia.
Appart from that, they are not part of the EU and normally don't accept euros.
This might be relevant to HN readers that are (or consider) digital nomads. Croatia's been pushing hard on making it easy for them to come and temporarly work from here.
Not having to leave/reenter Schengen area when visiting/leaving Croatia and dealing with yet another currency will definitely make their lives a bit easier.
On the flip side, digital nomads often look for places like Croatia that are similar to Schengen countries and border schengen territory to spend time in to "recharge" their schengen 90-day window (depending on your passport/ visa you may only stay in schengen for 90 days in any given 180 day window)
Some of the countries like Poland have bilateral agreements with USA allowing 180 days in country. Which makes the recharge rate very minimal, basically just get out for a day, then return to Poland.
Excerpt from Poland's policy.
"Yet further, above the framework of the Schengen visa exemption of 90 days in any 180-day period, Argentine, Chilean, Costa Rican, Honduran, Israeli, Japanese, Malaysian, Mexican, Nicaraguan, Panamanian, Singaporean, South Korean, United States and Uruguayan nationals are permitted to spend an extra period of 90 days visa-free in Poland."
While looking for the source I found this comment amusing.
https://www.everyoneinbetween.com/2018/02/how-to-travel-in-e...
"But bilateral travel agreements are weird. Mostly because there is little to no official information about them available for travelers! This is most likely because countries want them to be forgotten since they all date back to before the Schengen Treaty came into action for them (in the 90’s most likely)."
Here is your source. Not the best source, but I couldn't find my original on the Polish website https://www.gov.pl/ Well, honestly since I'm not in Poland it's just not worth looking for...
I was about to say, as someone who DNs sometimes, I like countries like Croatia where I could recharge the Schengen window. Technically you can live in the EU forever if you keep rotating every 90 days, but practically speaking, I'm not sure if border agents will refuse your entry if you keep doing that.
How does this work in practice? If a border guard accosts you for overstaying in Schengen and you tell them “I was spending time in Andorra”, what then? Can they not demand proof?
You're supposed to get stamped by Andorran and French or Spanish police if you properly want to document the non-Schengen days, but stamps are optional. Not sure how part-days work.
They will have a harder time because they will effectively be a new outer border and especially for Bulgaria there are some challenges in dealing with this. Which is a pity because I personally would love Romania and Bulgaria to become part of Schengen. It makes life so much easier if you travel there frequently.
Honestly maybe getting Croatian borders dissolved will be enough because in-season traffic is just such a sad waste. I would guess that traffic on the new borders will not be as bad.
We will see how this will play out. Being part of the EU will trigger tax liabilities and for some it’ll mean getting a Schengen visa (which the EU recently made more difficult to get).
I'm Slovene and now we have the same currency and open borders with Croatia again after 22 years.
One of the reasons Yugoslavia fell apart is because the richer north didn't want to pay for the under-developed south. EU has the same problem. The currency without a political union is a time-bomb. I also think the loss of the (educated) population to the north is unsustainable. Croatia has lost 10% of the population since it joined the EU.
To me it looks more and more like the whole southern europe is incentivized to form its own union. Something like a reunited roman empire of the economically frustrated and brain drained South
The main difference is that in Yugoslavia, most of political power was in poorer state (Serbia), while in EU the political power remains in richer countries (Germany, France).
Congrats to all the Croats here seeing this as a good thing! Welcome to the club! For me personally the benefits of being part of Euro and Schengen (coming from a small EU country) have been vastly greater than any potential costs.
Questions from a financially illiterate: does the switch to Euros carry any disadvantages to average Croatian citizens?
I could be wrong but I seem to remember other EU countries like the Czechs, Sweden and Denmark intentionally avoiding the switch to Euro despite being eligible, and from some articles I read recently, other countries like Finland and Netherlands regretting the switch from their currency as they don't want to have to suffer the proposed persistent high inflation and be punished for being financially responsible in order to help countries like Greece or Italy pay their huge debt.
Also, an older Italian gentleman I spoke to once told me that after their switch to Euros, their prices shot up but wages didn't. Curious how true this is and if the same could happen in Croatia.
Does having control of your own currency that's not pegged to the USD/Euro carry any advantages anymore if you're not someone like China ar is it pointless now?
> does the switch to Euros carry any disadvantages to average Croatian citizens?
Ignoring temporary inflation due to businesses taking advantage to round things up in Euros, my belief is the switch will be a net positive.
Croatia has been already completely tethered to Euro. Kuna was unofficially pegged almost from the start, house and car prices are always quoted in Euros, people's mortgages are calculated in Euros. The "loss" of monetary freedom that comes with not being able to print your own currency is not a loss here because Croatia could in practice never leave the peg, the consequences would be extremely severe.
On the other hand, Croatia is a very small country (less than 4m people) and tourism makes up a large portion of the economy. Using Euro removes friction and costs tourists and businesses had having to convert from/to the currency. The removal of the border checks (entering the Schengen, which also happens on Jan 1st) will also help with this.
> other countries like Finland regretting the switch from their currency as they don't want to have to suffer sky high inflation and be punished for being financially responsible just to help other countries like Greece or Italy pay their huge debt.
Croatia will be a net beneficiary (edited, thx) of EU funds related to the integration processes for at least a couple of years, and is near the rear of the pack in most economic measures.
> Ignoring temporary inflation due to businesses taking advantage to round things up in Euros, my belief is the switch will be a net positive.
In Italy we’ve been talking about this a lot. Of course there’s no evidence in the data and until last year prices had barely changed since I attended middle school in the mid 90s.
It could. It means that inflation / deflation will be linked to the wider EU economy and not responsive to the particular economic conditions of Croatia. This was a big deal in Greece when inflation would have helped their economy by boosting exports, but was impossible because of being tied to the much stronger economies of Western Europe.
There are some advantages to being on the Euro, but macroeonomically, it more benefits large stable countries (which then have an artificially depressed currency) like Germany and France.
And since the coin is now tied to the rest of Europe, it becomes more attractive for members from other EU states to buy property in Croatia, or live there as a pensionado. This can drive the (housing) prices upwards.
In general you cannot move around within the eu and work from another country beyond 90 days. Which imho defeats the purpose of calling it a single market
Indeed, Schengen is completely unrelated to work visas, it simply removes border control within the area.
Freedom of movement rights come from the EEA Single Market (EU + Iceland, Lichensteain, and Norway) plus Switzerland (through a complex series of ad-hoc agreements with the EU.) Not all EEA members are in the Schengen area but they still enjoy freedom of movement rights, they just have to go through border control entering the Schengen area.
> In general you cannot move around within the eu and work from another country beyond 90 days. Which imho defeats the purpose of calling it a single market
This is inaccurate. As an EEA/Swiss citizen you still have the right to work beyond 90 days. I think you may need to register with the country's social security office beyond that though. The 90 day rule is effectively there to prevent benefit tourism.
For instance, when I moved to Norway some years ago for a job I was able to start work without any paperwork as a then EU citizen but had to register with the tax office for a tax number before they were able to actually pay me with the proper tax withholdings.
"""
If you want to remain in an EU, EEA state or Switzerland for more than 90 days, you may be asked to show that you are:
- In employment
- Self-employed
- A full time student with health insurance and money to support yourself
- You have money to support yourself and health insurance (for you and your family) without state assistance
"""
Edit: Perhaps you are referring to remote work? If so then I think the situation in the EU is similar to that in the US where your employer must withhold state taxes in the state where you perform your work.
So, they can have their qualified youth (educated at Croation expense) go work and pay taxes in Switzerland or the Netherlands or Germany? I fail to see how that's a positive :)
I've been wondering why there is not more movement the other way around. Croatia is beautiful, especially around the coast, and given the hybrid work direction the world is heading in it seems it could be very appealing to have satellite offices around Rijeka, Split, Pula etc. to the point where even foreigners would be willing to move there.
There are some satellite offices already in the cities that you mention. Those are usually from some big shipping/offshore/maritime companies which can afford it. Those offices attract locally skilled and/or certified workers, foreign being very rare in my experience as the salaries are pretty low. Higher than the average in the city, but not by much.
As the sibling comment said, they taxes are enormous, public services openly hostile to everyone, and public medical services (which you pay a lot anyway) are arguably worse then 40 years ago.
The coast is beautiful in places, the islands are even more so. But there is a difference between living there and visiting. I would even argue that the cities you mention are much worse to live in than say Croatia's capital Zagreb. The cities are very hot during summer, and just miserable outside of it. I would even argue that most of the coast/islands are like that, small towns are empty and dead outside of the summer season, and too crowded during one.
Personally, I would rather live in an alive place, and visit Croatia's islands now and then, then in a place which springs to life two months a year.
Croatia is really bad when it comes to support for doing any kind of business. Effective tax rate over 50% for high earners, really hostile tax authorities, difficulty getting loans etc.
Free movement rights with Switzerland are a bit of a fudge since it is not formally part of the EEA Single Market and instead has a series of ad-hoc agreements with the EU one of which has provided freedom of movement since 2002. https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home/themen/fza_schweiz-eu-e...
Similarly to the way some EU members applied transitional arrangements temporarily limiting free movement rights to citizens of new members states, Switzerland currently has a quota on Croatian citizens moving there.
How will these companies be able to sell services to the Western EU if all the skilled workers moved West? Are they as capitalized as their Western counterparts?
So no company in USA exist outside the best paying locations as absolutely everyone has moved to best paying richer cities. As have the companies as there is no capitalization in poor regions?
It's not "no company" obviously, but you're actually giving a very nice example. The decay of rural and industrial America over the last 60 years is a very notable fact.
I don't know if I would put France in the stable countries basket. Italy's indebtedness will catch up with them sooner or later. France will likely come shortly after. There are lots of liabilities that come attached to becoming a member of the eurozone. All this debt will have to be inflated away.
"... does the switch to Euros carry any disadvantages to average Croatian citizens?"
It carries tremendous disadvantages.
In fact, I'm quite surprised that at this late date, with a greater understanding of what it means to force your citizens to use the Deutsche Mark, that they have made this decision.
With all due respect to Croatia and the lovely people that live there, they cannot compete globally with Germany in any interesting export market.
The typical tool that a nation uses to deal with that reality is the relative value of their currency. Consumers of import goods then have a choice to make between German quality and (for instance) Spanish pricing.
... and now that lever will be gone.
At this point I think it is fairly well understood what the economic - and social - ramifications of this are and, again, I am actually quite surprised they've made this choice.
It’s a trade off. You give Germany and France more control, but they are incentivized to backstop you. It seems the countries continuing to join the EU understand this and are at peace with it.
Tourism is one of the larger sectors in Croatia’s economy, so frictionless travel between them and other EU members is likely worth the arrangement. They also have a floating LNG terminal, very valuable due to recent events.
I don't think there is 'Germany and France' anymore these days. There is Germany and their goodwill towards France, if any, [edit:] because all the power and leverage has been with Germany for years now. Recent years have shown that Germany will of course focus on its own interests and policies and ignore France/rest for the EU whenever they deem fit to do so, while France is in a weaker position. At least it used to be that France had military power going for themselves but recent policy changes in Berlin should really and finally set alarm bells ringing in Paris.
My shorthand is lazy, but it’s no different than California ($3.3T GDP), Texas ($2.1T), and New York ($2T) carrying the rest of the US states. Europe is stronger together than apart (economically speaking), and this is a good deal for everyone involved (my two cents).
I admit there is always a bit of contention when macroeconomic stress limits are tested. Such is the nature of unions.
The United States and the individual states share both a fiscal and monetary union.
The EU, on the other hand, is a monetary union but not a fiscal union and our expectations for that arrangement range from hopeful to outright fatalism.
I agree with you in theory/academically but disagree with you that the difference matters in application. The only difference is the force with which the dissenting or economically weaker parties can be dragged by the majority; in both cases, the dissenting are still getting dragged (and drag applied to the majority). There is no appetite in either case to dissolve the monetary union. Witness how poorly it went for the UK leaving the EU, and that’s with maintaining their own currency.
In the UK much of the popular support for the EU was from people looking to escape their own god awful politicians, that things didn’t go well after leaving, due to the same god awful politicians, wasn’t a big surprise. Technically one way to fix it would be to elect better politicians, but it’s the UK so that doesn’t seem to be an option.
I dislike Thatcher, a lot. However she was ahead of the curve in 1990. This is a quote from her last speech in the House of Commons as PM:
“ [...] the point of that kind of Europe with a central bank is no democracy, taking powers away from every single Parliament, and having a single currency, a monetary policy and interest rates which take all political power away from us.”
> There are still parliaments in EU countries, they still debate and vote laws.
Greece cannot pass laws through parliament without Brussels approval. Italy, effectively need to stay in-line with the EU's program otherwise the EU aid will stop... so effectively these parliaments vote whatever they're told by Brussels to vote.
> Yeah, some matters are also discussed at the EU level. That's what happens when different entities make and join a club. They have to collaborate.
I don't see much collaboration happening tbh (energy, immigration, etc.). I could point articles but I think we have a completely different view on how's Europe actually governed right now.
The quote is technically wrong only in the "taking powers away from every single Parliament" part, as central banks are usually independent. As far as monetary policy goes, adopting euro is losing independence.
That might be a positive thing even just in the context of monetary policy, but that does not really make the quote incorrect.
The plan was always to use a debt crisis to turn the monetary union into a fiscal union. I guess therein lies the fatalism. But fiscal unions were much easier to form when money was gold backed and financialization wasn’t so rampant. Plus people have seen the effects of Germany being able to export unemployment via its surplus is it upsetting other Europeans and building anti-EU sentiment. In my view the debt crisis is structurally baked in and guaranteed to happen, what I’m uncertain about is the extent of the backlash EU leadership will receive from the attempt at normalizing fiscal policy.
The US is very different. States don’t have firepower. The Federal holds all the final cards, and it has little loyalty to any one state. That’s very much the difference to EU “union”.
> They also have a floating LNG terminal, very valuable due to recent events.
You can have all the LNG terminals in the world, but if your government and judicary are completely corrupted, normal citizens won't get a cent out of it. And that's happening over here in Croatia.
The countries don’t understand a thing, until it’s too late. Politicians want bigger-size budget to spend (the first 5 years) and the local elites want to avoid possible depreciation of their bank accounts (Italy, Greece, etc).
The local elite now will be owned by Brussels within a few years to an extend they can’t imagine. The politicians care too much about their personal careers, they don’t care about the state.
Ultimately the Citizens will have to pay the piper, but then again … maybe I am wrong.
Joining the EUR in 2000 one could claim ignorance. Joining in 2022, without having infrastructure and industry to compete with Germany, using a currency they completely control is pure suicide. You go looking for someone to take over you country.
Greece and Italy can’t blame Brussels for structural demographics and no industry worth young people sticking around for though, right? If your country is just a runner up economically, you didn’t have much leverage to begin with. With monetary policy control, you can print, but without the underlying economic engine to back that printing, you end up as Turkey (bad) or Venezuela (worse). Only in aggregate can you monetize the debt.
> Greece and Italy can’t blame Brussels for structural demographics and no industry worth young people sticking around for though
Greece and Italy choose to be part of the EUR, so now they have to pay the price of a choice they made. However, there is a structural problem with the way the common currency is constructed. This has little to do with individual countries and everything to do with the eurozone.
The EURO created a union with a common central bank that lacked a common state to have its back, while simultaneously allowing states to carry on without a central bank to have their backs in times of financial crisis, when states must bail out the banks operating in their territory.
Now during the good times, cross-border loans created unsustainable debts. Then, at the first sign of financial distress (either a public or a private debt crisis), the writing was on the wall: a eurozone-wide spasm whose inevitable outcome was sharp divergence and enormous new imbalances.
The beneficiaries of this situation are some countries and not others, but this is not sustainable in the long run. The EU needs to create a proper banking union and then most likely most to a sort of political integration. Unfortunately the EURO as currently constructed, made that impossible by pitting one country against another.
Although I share the sentiment, Brussels elites are equally or more buffoons.
There are some "pro-Brussels" arguments. For example right now Greece is in the midst of a spying scandal and the only way the judiciary pays attention is to avoid pressure from Brussels. Local journalists try to escalate to European bodies because locally the judiciary bodies are either corrupted or toothless.
> With all due respect to Croatia and the lovely people that live there, they cannot compete globally with Germany in any interesting export market.
> The typical tool that a nation uses to deal with that reality is the relative value of their currency.
The typical tool they use is product pricing. Why devalue the savings and assets of Croatians who don't participate in exports?
The irony of your claim is that Croatians use the euro as a store of value in preference to the kuna because of the (perceived) vulnerability of the kuna to devaluation, or even elimination. They've lived through several wars and attendant changes in sovereignty were bank savings were simply wiped out or the old currency was severely devalued in a forced exchange.
People tend to bring up this "important tool" but ignore that by itself it's of little value (see Italy for instance: so many devaluations, still a fiscal basket case) and ignore the severe impact devaluations have on the income as assets of people who have worked hard and done nothing to deserve the haircuts they recieve in currency devaluations. More often it's used as a tool to avoid economic reforms (again Italy).
> Croatians use the euro as a store of value in preference to the kuna
Not only that, but they have used the German Mark before in favor of the dinar. And dollars as well in seafaring regions. There are pop songs from the 80s made about this. [1] Pop the lyrics into Google Translate Croatian --> English: https://cuspajz.com/tekstovi-pjesama/pjesma/djurdjica-barlov...
In reality, Croatians never stored too much value in money (be it kuna or euro, or deutch mark), they've stored it in real estate. Why? Because taxes are one of the highest in the world, and in return people get next to nothing. So instead they've built houses (usually by themselves), especially on the coast and islands so they could rent them. Real estate is like a big piggy bank. This has it's own set of problems nowadays though.
> The typical tool that a nation uses to deal with that reality is the relative value of their currency ... and now that lever will be gone.
That lever hasn't been there in a while. Croatia could never lift the peg to Euro without massive disruption to almost everyone here.
A few years ago, Switzerland lifted its peg. Only a very small number of Croatian mortgages have using CHF at the time (the rates were better then EUR or HRK ones) and the resulting damage was huge (bankruptcies, people's lives' ruined), still having repercussions ot this day.
Compared ot that, virtually all of the mortgages (and other types of loans) are either calculated in Euro or pegged to Euro directly or indirectly. If the peg had ever lifted, you'd have rioters in all the major cities the next day.
This: <<it showed that people don’t really understand what they’re signing.>> It demonstrates that regulation was too weak. They shouldn't have allowed people to borrow huge sums of money (to buy a house) in foreign currency. It was a recipe for disaster.
i don’t agree with this. it’s essentially up to the people to decide what’s best for them. and i’m sure the lesson has been learned now re. CHF. of course the lesson should have been taught at some point during formal education, but alas. plus, to top it all off, there are countless financial products to isolate yourself from fx fluctuations. it’s just that education is lacking.
There is no "tremendous advantage" available to small countries in being able to devalue their currency.
A currency devaluation may, in theory, make a country's exports more competitive but it does so by imposing a real cut on every citizens income. It also makes all imports more expensive leading to inflation so in the end, it cannot not solve the underlying problem.
There are no examples of countries becoming wealthier simply by manipulating the value of their currency. Nor does it make me taller if I decide from now on to measure my height in cm instead of inches.
Croatian Kuna was basically pegged to Euro by Croatian central bank. Large amount of loans and savings were in Euro already. Switching to euro was mostly a formality at this point.
I visited Dubrovnik in early December expecting to spend mostly euros, given the peg and impending switch. In reality I used only kuna. Almost all restaurants, market stalls and shops were accepting HRK only and none of the ATMs were dispensing EUR. To me it seemed so bizarre with only 3 weeks to go - and a big contrast to my experience in Amsterdam before their switch in 2002.
Well, nobody was accepting euro much (legally), because well, it would be illegal. Dunno how it was in Amsterdam in 2002, but for the next 15 days a lot of smaller businesses just won't work until the 15th when kuna is officially not accepted anywhere anymore and everything has to be in Euro.
Whenever you purchase with HRK, you'll get your change in EUR. ATMs that are dispensing HRK will stop working, but those that dispense EUR will be available for no fees regardless of the bank.
> With all due respect to Croatia and the lovely people that live there, they cannot compete globally with Germany in any interesting export market.
This fails Econ 101. Gains from trade occur even if one country is absolutely worse at making and selling everything than another. You may want to revisit the concept of comparative advantage.
Their currency is also currently pegged to the euro, so this is absolutely no change from a macroeconomic perspective. It just reduces the barriers to trade, including tourism.
> The typical tool that a nation uses to deal with that reality is the relative value of their currency. Consumers of import goods then have a choice to make between German quality and (for instance) Spanish pricing.
> ... and now that lever will be gone.
Because Croatian prices will be equal to German prices? Why?
Why do you expect that to happen? Finnland uses the Euro and has different prices from Germany, so does Latvia, Spain, Italy, France,… if the prices for goods depended on the currency alone, we’d all have the same prices. But we don’t. And the Croatian currency was pegged to the EUR anyways, so if you’d be right and the currency dictates the price, they’d already have the same price in all but name.
It means lower interest rates at the cost of high unemployment, unless you are Germany or some other country with naturally low interest rates. Low interest rates drives up asset prices and assets are owned by the wealthy. Unemployment/underemployment hurts young people the most. Governments can borrow more cheaply and can spend more money on social programs but they also tend to divert it into their own pockets and to the pockets of their backers. When the inevitable crisis hit the countries can’t devalue the debt in response, they instead have to sell national assets.
Nothing to do with a PR move. The voters said no at referendum, regardless of the major parties campaigning for a yes. The infinite peg was just a way to circumvent the result of the public vote.
Before adopting the Euro, countries spend some amount of time in the ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanisms) where the currency is pegged to the Euro. Thus, the actual switch is just a note swap, the actual advantages and disadvantages are already there.
The real issue is they lose the ability to issue debts in their own currency and whether that's good or bad depends hugely on individual counties. It has worked well for some, not for others.
> The real issue is they lose the ability to issue debts in their own currency and whether that's good or bad depends hugely on individual counties.
Having your own currency also allows you to set monetary policy and not just follow the European Central Bank. So in time of financial crisis you can print as much money as you want and fiddle with exchange rates to make your country more competitive.
> Thus, the actual switch is just a note swap, the actual advantages and disadvantages are already there.
Not quite. When your currency is pegged to the euro, the exchange rate isn’t fixed; you only promise to try and keep it fixed. If that turns out to be impossible (or you don’t want to do it anymore), you can change the exchange rate or decide to stop that pegging.
Of course, that you could do that has a price: people will weigh the risk of something like that happening when they invest in your currency.
If you join the euro, the exchange rate becomes 100% fixed. Giving up that flexibility removes some uncertainty for investors, and that may be beneficial to you (technically, you could still exit the euro system and reintroduce a national currency, but your national debt and interest payments would still be valued in euros, diminishing the effect you get from getting back your own currency. It also is deeply uncharted territory; I’m not even sure rules for doing it have been made. Markets may judge a move like that similar to how they would judge defaulting on your loans)
In some sense, pegging to the euro is the try-out of “what would happen if we joined the euro?”
"About 80 percent of bank deposits are denominated in euros and Zagreb’s main trading partners are in the eurozone. Croatians have long valued their most prized assets such as cars and apartments in euros, displaying a lack of confidence in the local currency."
So in that sense it's less of a radical change than e.g. Czechia or Sweden, since they primarily use the local currency AFAIK.
If you're already half-way using the Euro (kuna is pegged to Euro as well) you might as well join the euro-zone and have some influence.
Being from the Netherlands, I don't think we in majority regret being in the Euro or Schengen.
Of course, there's downsides and some people want out, but you'll have those in any country.
> other countries like Finland and Netherlands regretting the switch
Oh man I absolutely do not. This makes life so much easier as a Dutch person. It felt a bit weird and was tricky to deal with and mentally convert Iceland's currency to something that makes sense to me while on holiday last year, or having prices for books and food in a stopover airport to Finland in another random currency despite to/from being all Schengen/EU. But that's just holidays and stopovers. Imagine this is part of your daily life as you go to a restaurant in Belgium, or get a drink after a walk in the Eifel in Germany. Even if you could pay by card (hah, germany and paying by card) the exchange fees would probably add up. Or buying hardware in a German media markt that isn't available in the Netherlands, gotta do math and factor in exchange fees.
No thank you, Euros all the way. I'm not economically literate enough to say whether it would be a good idea to have a world currency, but I'd be in favor of working towards that sort of thing if it were sensible (probably you get into issues like some places having a ton of inflation while others are negative and not being able to balance it out with a central bank, but again, I don't truly know the impact of that).
You alluded to this with respect to Germany, but the less cash-based daily life is, the less of a big deal the currency change is. As long as the machine goes beep, it can go beep in drachmas or rand or pesos or whatever.
Within SEPA it's now zero. I can buy computer parts in Germany without considering that downside. Kind of the useful for this 'one market' thing they are trying to have going on.
And the mental math every time. I can trust that a coffee is going to be a bit overpriced at worst (but not a real mistake), but is it worth driving 5 minutes to a petrol station that sell it at 493 ISK the litre instead of 529 ISK? Should I buy this shirt for 1500 ISK as souvenir or is that insensible? Hard to tell.
I respectfully disagree, it still introduces a lot of unnecessary friction. Being in a Czech supermarket, for example, is confusing, because I don’t instantly know what “79” means, or whether “279” is cheap or expensive. The exchange rate is awkward for mental calculation (22.5 to a dollar). I could convert with my phone, but for a big shop where you’re buying dozens of things, that’s impractical. Euros would reduce the cognitive load of travel and business considerably.
>Also, an older Italian gentleman I spoke to once told me that after their switch to Euros, their prices shot up but wages didn't. Curious how true this is and if the same could happen in Croatia.
On the euro-conversion day, 1 EUR = 1,936.27 ITLira = 1 Deutschmark (at the time).
So, prices went up ie a L1,000 coffee became €1 - it doubled, because a) it was easy and b) people just couldn't be bothered. Businesses had no problem, being bothered, of course - wood from Germany that used to cost DM1,000, now cost €1,000 in Italy when it should have been 1,000/1,936.27 = 516 Euro....but it didn't. I knew a guy that was building a house and it was cheaper to purchase a lot of things from Germany (even with the exchange rates, paperwork etc), and boy did they get burned. Equally, an Italian company they originally called had also doubled their prices, so it would have cost twice as much again to purchase locally.
Italy was just the victim of a series of rounding errors, except when it came to wages, as they didn't double.
To me, it's just like shopping in the states. A dollar is a dollar, but state, local, county etc taxes sure make it far more interesting than it should be.
There's a chance that cost of goods and services might significantly increase as businesses exploit unfamiliarity with the new currency. A cup of coffee that costs 15 HRK (2 EUR) today might cost 3 EUR tomorrow.
Having said that, it seems like they've foreseen this issue and currently require businesses to display prices in both currencies.
It's definitely not pointless. Consider this: the Eurozone is a monetary union without a fiscal or political union. Its monetary policy is effectively controlled by the biggest economies, particularly Germany.
However, countries have drastically different monetary goals, as can be sharply seen in times of crisis, such as the sovereign debt crisis in the 2010s. It's fundamentally impossible to satisfy the goals of Germany and Greece, for example, with a unified currency but no fiscal union (and of course, with no democratic governance).
This response seems unfair. Not the GP, but to me their question seems in presumably good faith (I’m not sure that asking if there are any disadvantages is a loaded question) and is followed by a description of their understanding clearly wrapped in a disclaimer to avoid simply “parroting” political memes.
Oh, a disclaimer... yeah, that's usually how it works, you play the disclaimer card to candidly disguise your statements as questions.
There is no need to repeat the Germany-responsible-greece-lazy idea to ask questions about how adopting the Euro plays out for a given country.
I would also point out that Germany is not as responsible as what many people claim considering their little energy problem and the impact it now has on Europe but I am not playing that card.
I'd like to counter the notion the EU today is first and foremost an economic union. The EU can not simply be replaced by "a bunch of free trade agreements". Helmut Kohl has always maintained the EU was also founded to finalize borders and forever rule out another war between member states. Today, it is a union of common values and peace first and foremost. No one (in their right mind) is discussing border disputes between France and Germany - although at least three bitter wars were fought in the last 150 years. Or between other countries for that matter.
It does not matter much on what side of the border one lives. And if it does to someone, they're free to move. Borders are now settled once and for all. If a nation joins the EU this is an accepted fact - and no, an exception like a nationalist, populist Hungary publically dreaming of access to the Adriatic Sea does not invalidate the line of thought.
For context: the border originally followed the flow of the river, but a few decades earlier the river was straigthened by dredging to enhance the traffic on the river; the border was left as-is though, leaving both countries with hard-to-reach peninsulas on the "wrong" side of the river.
The Netherlands and Germany are even in a border "conflict" about the exact way the Ems estuary is divided (DE refers to an old document, NL claims the border goes down the middle of the water).
It's not much of a problem in practice because of agreements made decades ago and there is no (or very little) actual land involved, but the borders are still technically disputed by both side.
Germany has formally waived any claims of its former territories east of the Oder-Neisse line with the 2+4 treaty leading up to the reunification in 1990, so we can't be bothered anyway. A Czech Kralovec really makes the most sense ;)
To Romanians, the ongoing stonewalling is perceived as racism against Gypsies; fear that the under-documented Gypsies of Romania and Bulgaria will flood Western Europe, who already has had enough of the documented Gypsies migrating to their cities so far. And when, after years of poorly-founded claims that the Romanian external border was leaky, Austria brings up their brand new, never heard before reason "poor treatment of Austrian businesses", it's seen as making up random stuff, cynically.
> poorly-founded claims that the Romanian external border was leaky
I'm not sure what you are talking about. There have been several incidents regarding smuggling across the Romanian border with Ukraine/Moldavia/Black Sea, plus endemic corruption (see the Recorder documentary).
I would not trust today's Romania to secure Europe's borders.
The Black Sea migration route is nowhere close to the Mediterranean routes. Like 200 incidents in the Black Sea vs 300k+ in the Mediterranean in 2022, with Italy, Greece and Spain being principal entry points.
Not talking about migration specifically. For example, there was an incident in 2019 when the Black Sea border surveillance system went down several times, and at the same time drug shipments were discovered on the sea shore.
Migrants routes may be used as a political justification but there have been a bunch of border incidents suggesting Romania does not in fact meet the criteria for Schengen.
Not sure what your point is, there is drug smuggling in pretty much any country in the world (except maybe North Korea), this can not be 100% stopped. By now it is common knowledge that western european ports are the drug hubs of the EU[1].
The whole border surveillance system went down in order for drug shipments (and who knows what else) to go through. The problem is obvious, you just need to acknowledge it.
There's a difference between 1) insufficient border protection and 2) corrupt border security.
As far as corruption, Romania’s CPI is virtually identical to Hungary’s.
You won’t be able to make a good argument using statistics about corruption and migration. European politicians have given up on that, too. Now it’s subjective stuff like “they don’t treat our businesses well.”
I'm in the south of England and there's been a marked uptick in "Romanian" beggers and pick pockets over the last decade. [disclaimer: I don't know if they're actually Romanian]
There's also a bunch of lovely people. One of the companies I worked with had a remote office in Romania, and onshored a fair amount of staff, and they were perfectly european culturally.
The counter is obviously there's nothing wrong with Romanians ethnically, but there has been downsides of denying the negative consequences of immigration, which had helped fuel our absolute farce of removing from the union.
With that said, from the little knowledge I have on the issues, many of these issues are the UK shooting itself in the foot, but my point is these are not black and white issues, but rather complex issues that are better fixed for an increasingly stable Europe.
[Leaving aside the implication that "Romanian" has become a sort of synonym for beggar or pick-pocket:]
The thing is, Romanians are Europeans. They're all culturally European. It's just that some (mostly Western) Europeans dislike the grimier aspects of European culture and have redefined European-ness to exclude some European people.
If I see a hobo from Alabama begging downtown, I'm not going to be like "this guy is not 'culturally American,' we should restrict Alabama's travel to the rest of the US." I see it as American culture, and we should fix it by improving quality of life throughout the federation.
The "unified Europe" project is hilariously wrapped up in mindfuck games of who to exclude.
- timing of the influx
- appearance
- my wife is Ukrainian and see believes them to be Romanian. She likely has better insight than I.
- She also talks to them sometimes.
On that note, most recent case of pick pockets I came across were actually speaking Ukrainian in Norwich.
You can still _sort of_ get a stamp from them. When you enter/leave the Schengen area, you get a stamp. The stamp will indicate which country you entered/left the Schengen area. (Obviously, if you have a passport from within the Schengen area, you get no stamp.)
Then again, I've also noticed that US passport control has stopped stamping my passport.
This is a measure to help the airline industry adapt to the change.
March 26 is the date of the switch from the winter schedule to the summer schedule for airlines. There are differing rules and visas for entry into Croatia versus Schengen, and changes on the ground like different gate assignments, and given the timing of the final decision (Dec 9th, midway through the winter schedule) it would have meant that airlines would be speculatively changing the rules on their flights mid year, which is obviously unworkable.
My understanding is the gates will be reallocated to avoid the passport checks. This is a bit more involved than just raising the ramps at road crossings.
There will be no passport control what so ever for inner Schengen flights so it doesn’t matter what passport you are holding so it’s more likely to have to do with the design of the arrivals routes as well as being able to selectively configure arrival gates for Schengen vs international to make sure that only Schengen flights bypass passport control.
I had never really thought about it but am now realizing that the Eurozone (countries using the Euro) and the European Union do not overlap perfectly. There are countries outside the EU that use the euro and countries in the EU which do not use the Euro.
Look forward to reading more about about the differences and successes/failures that can be attributed to falling within each of those groups.
Sounds like a good plan for Austria and Germany to buffer refugees coming through the balkan routes. If I remember correctly, the Dublin regulation states that the EU country that will be responsible for the asylum will be the first one reached by the refugees...
> If I remember correctly, the Dublin regulation states that the EU country that will be responsible for the asylum will be the first one reached by the refugees...
Not really first one reached, but first one where fingerprints were documented or an asylum claim was filed. This is why in the case of Syria for example, relatively many Syrian refugees are the responsibility of northern European countries like Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands.
But that's was because of the division rules created later by Germany, as some countries just started to forward the refugees to Germans borders, right? The default was the country where the refugees land is where the fingerprints were collected
Meanwhile CZK Czech crown is strongest against euro in 11 years, so much for euro being helpful in any way. And if you look at Eurostat stats Eurozone countries have consistently lower GDP growth and higher unemployment than countries not in Eurozone.
I wonder what will fall first, whether EU or Eurozone, there are hardly any benefits for anyone joining now unless it's extremely poor country (EU).
As for convenience, everyone pays with card anyway, so it absolutely doesn't matter what the currency is anymore.
> there are hardly any benefits for anyone joining now unless it's extremely poor country (EU)
There's a massive benefit and that's the free movement of goods and people. The EU has lifted up both poor countries and made rich ones richer... Ask Poland, CR, SR, the Baltics, etc... what they think of the EU. And France and Germany have also benefitted, both have doubled their GDP since the creation of the EU.
> Meanwhile CZK Czech crown is strongest against euro in 11 years, so much for euro being helpful in any way.
The CR is in some ways a bit of an outlier - they're very heavy into manufacturing, have been growing very fast plus have had a rather conservative monetary policy.
> The CR is in some ways a bit of an outlier - they're very heavy into manufacturing
Made easier when well over two-thirds of your exports are to EU countries, with zero tariffs. GP then has the nerve to conflate Eurozone membership with EU membership to fit their hazy narrative - the lack of rigor is astounding.
not really truth, all of these poor countries had huge growth prior joining EU and it just continued after joining EU same as it would continue without joining, not thanks to EU, which is wishful thinking of EU proponents, look at Serbia GDP growth for instance, higher than any EU country and even fresh EU members Bulgaria and Romania had huge growth prior joining, same with central Europe, you will have trouble finding poor non EU country without massive growth
but yes money wise it's beneficial for poor countries to be net receiver of funds, for well of countries which are around zero contributor/benefactor there are hardly any benefits left
> look at Serbia GDP growth for instance, higher than any EU country
Absolutely false, Ireland has had higher GDP growth, and closer peers like Estonia or Lithuania have had comparable growth rates to Serbia, which is all the more impressive (or underwhelming for Serbia depending on how you look at it), because these peers have much more developed economies (on a GDP per capita PPP basis) and sustaining high growth when you're already developed is harder.
It's not true. There was massive growth and investments into Eastern Europe after EU admission. Most of Serbia, aoart from Belgrade and Nis is very much like Romania or Southern Bulgaria (Nortwestern Bulgaria is depopulated) in the 2000s. Their infrastructure has also benefited from EU investment programs, despite being alligned with Russia.
Also the wine industry in these countries and also in Hungary has seen major growth and huge quality improvements. In fact this industry has been growing in Moldova and North Macedonia as well as a consequence to increased EU exports.
> And if you look at Eurostat stats Eurozone countries have consistently lower GDP growth and higher unemployment than countries not in Eurozone.
Sorry but "if you look at Eurostat stats Eurozone countries" is not going to cut it as a source when you make such bold claims.
Playing around with World Bank data, you can see that out of a selection of non-Eurozone countries (Czechia, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania), and Eurozone countries (Estonia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Latvia), and checking their PPP GDP per capita growth, it's a complete mixed bag. The only cluster that emerges is non-EU, non-Eurozone countries doing significantly worse than EU countries:
You're using EU vs EU-but-non-eurozone data to leap and conclude that "EU is worth it only for poor countries", the intellectual laziness on display is astonishing and I'm done here.
The Eurozone is not a good idea unless all countries try to do balanced trade voluntarily. That doesn't work if there are countries like Germany in the eurozone because other countries will have a perpetual trade deficit, effectively exporting unemployment from Germany to other nations.
What developing or growing countries need to do is export their products to the rich ones so they can build up their domestic economy and pay off debts with the fresh money in their country. This doesn't mean huge export surpluses, exporting as much as you are importing is ok. The lack of of an exchange rate means German products are valued at the average between western and eastern Europe so everyone buys from Germany almost exclusively which isn't healthy in the long run.
A currencys value is far from the deciding factor of said currency or somehow in your case how well the EU is doing.
Also gdp growth is not an important indicator since most well developed countries will see their gdp growth stabilize, but even if we take your point at heart it isn't true[1].
Its ironic you bring up Czechia, since it's an excellent example of how a strong economic Eastern European country is still reaping te reward of being in the EU. [2][3]
Strong CZK is partly due to FX interventions (sell EUR, buy CZK) done by the central bank (https://think.ing.com/articles/cnb-fx-intervention-september...).
The idea is that interventions makes CZK stronger, which makes imports cheaper (think gas etc.. bought in EUR), which lowers inflation.
> Czech crown is strongest against euro in 11 years
You say that as if that was something to strive for. CZ is an exports-heavy economy.
> I wonder what will fall first, whether EU or Eurozone
Fall? First? What does that even mean?
Putting aside the nature of a fallen EU, which probably is a semantics game anyway, not worth getting dragged into, it is even harder to understand how the ECB would operate without EU agreements in place.
Delaying Romania's acceptance, at the whim of a hardliner right-wing government like Austria's, could only impact the stability of the area - long term - considering the strategic placement of the country, which could always "swing" to elect its own pro-Putin government, if the nationalism rises as result of Schengen denial. Interesting aspects to monitor in the year(s) to come...
Reading the comments here, and on previous EU-related threads, I can't understand the anti-EU sentiment on HN.
Despite its flaws, which it surely has, I can't see the EU as anything but a major success of humanity. A force for cooperation between peoples with vastly different cultures, languages and historical backgrounds, working together towards a better future.
For those critical of the EU, please comment here on what you suggest as an alternative. Are the countries supposed to split up and go back to competing with each other in an increasingly harsher global market? How on earth are the small EU countries supposed to compete?
Maybe you'll say that the EU is great for small countries and not so much for larger ones, who are sponsoring the EU's success with their citizens tax money. Maybe that is true so, as a citizen of one of those small countries, I am thankful to my fellow EU-tizens who are better-off, for quite literally bringing my country into the world stage, with the increases in quality of life that that entails.
I welcome my fellow Croatian citizens to Shenghen and the Euro, I hope to get to meet some of you next time I visit your country, or vice-versa. Long live the EU, one of humanity's greatest achievements.
I think the largest issues with the EU is that it is fundamentally flawed for one main reason: all these countries are tied to the hip to each other due to the currency and singe market, but cannot control the others economies or spending. It's like splitting bills with your unemployed brother in law.
For a common central bank and currency union, each country de facto has to give into a federalism of central debt issuance and budgetary powers. We have this in the United States: the federal government can run a deficit and print money, individual states cannot. We have a republic and California (most populous state) gets more representation than Wyoming (least populous).
For the EU to work long term, every country is going to have to give up more and more power / fiscal autonomy to Brussels each year for the currency to work. What happened when Greece was going to default on its debt? Germany stepped in, bailed them out, and started stealing their assets (airports, ports) because they weren't going to let the currency tank. Granted, Greece has some issues but whether they like it or not Greece defaulting on their debt affects the whole currency block. Greece issued its own debt.
The reality of the eurozone is that it has made rich countries exports cheaper (Germany, France) and made marginal countries poorer (Italy, Spain, Portugal).
If you grew up in Croatia speaking Croat and possibly English, do you really think the Greek labor market is open to you? Could you in all practicality relocate to Belgium and start a business?
Anti globalism sentiments are in every country these days. I personally don't see euro countries giving any more power to the European Commission, and I see the project ultimately failing.
My 2 cents. I don't have a dog in this race, and don't really think the EU is "good" or "bad."
> The reality of the eurozone is that it has made rich countries exports cheaper (Germany, France) and made marginal countries poorer (Italy, Spain, Portugal)
Italy is not a marginal country. It's the world's 8th largest economy, way larger than such EU heavyweights as Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland.
> If you grew up in Croatia speaking Croat and possibly English, do you really think the Greek labor market is open to you? Could you in all practicality relocate to Belgium and start a business?
If you grew up in Croatia, you for sure speak English and possibly German or Italian as well.
It would not be as easy to relocate your business as, perhaps from one US state to another, but that's mostly because of local law differences in how a business must operate.
I know people who basically just got up and moved (to the Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland and Germany) and they had no problem whatsoever.
Edited to add as I can't reply: I know of multiple tradespeople that have moved from Zagreb, mostly to Germany and Austria. That's plumbers, house painters,
HVAC installers, ..
The difference in wages is large and unemployment in rich EU countries low - that's a potent combination.
I did just that, I have friends trying to do it and it's complete BS.
I was able to do it just because I'm in software and I work with english speaking clients outside the EU and I'm just shopping for the best eu country that gives me the best weather / services / lifestyle with the lower taxes.
People outside of software have a hard time and are stuck in their country, exactly like they were before the EU.
> People outside of software have a hard time and are stuck in their country, exactly like they were before the EU.
Not really. It's very popular for Croats to move to Ireland to drive trucks for instance. There are businesses set up by Croatians in other EU countries that hire Croats who don't speak any other languages. People get the help of friends and family when they immigrate. It's been like that for many immigrants worldwide for a long time.
I hope people realize I'm not just shutting on the EU with my post. It is legitimately hard to emigrate ANYWHERE, let alone another country that doesn't speak your language and has cultural differences.
Hell, I couldn't live, work, state a business in most of the USA and we all speak the same language and share a lot of the same culture, currency, federal government. Etc.
Which country did you move to, and what was the main impediment?
Your combo sounds like Portugal. I agree there are probably differences between countries, but from what I've seen if your trade is in demand in the target country, it's relatively easy.
And it's even easier if there's an expat community you can reach out to for advice.
> It's like splitting bills with your unemployed brother in law.
I don't think that's a great comparison. It's not just a choice for now, but a multi-generation plan. If we don't share now, we're just going to end up with the possibility of poorer countries getting into more extreme governments as requested by suffering population and eventually waves of refugees.
It's more of a choice of supporting a neighbour in development with the prospect of better trade in the future, or saying "not my problem, let my grandchild deal with the fallout".
As one of the examples, yes. Another one is effectively subsidizing the military of others in the union. There's a reason Russian bombs stop just before Polish border, even though that's just a short distance away from where the logistics for arms delivery is happening.
> Anti globalism sentiments are in every country these days. I personally don't see euro countries giving any more power to the European Commission, and I see the project ultimately failing.
My personal experience is that after brexit a lot of people are more pro-eu than before. Of course it is just anecdata.
Lots of eurosceptic parties toned down their euroscepticism after Brexit (predictably) turned out to be a disaster. Front National in France is one of the most notable examples.
"Business investment is growing again above the EU average. A strong pipeline of EU co-funded investment projects for the next four years is expected to provide an additional boost to investment. "
" Economic policy was also bolstered by a set of favourable circumstances, including the external depreciation of the euro, the relatively low price of oil, economic growth in the country’s main export destinations, Portugal’s ascent as a tourist destination (partly as a result of the political turmoil and instability in the Middle East) and the ECB’s accommodative monetary policy stance (which helped significantly reduce interest rates and minimise public interest outlay"
"Gomes also pointed out that the biggest boost Portugal received from Europe’s recovery came via exports, with the continent taking up 75% of the country’s exports of goods and services. "
I can link stuff all day here. Increases in quality of education, massive rises in investment, Lisbon has become (again) a world class capital, and if anything, Portugal is overheated from their EU membership.
I can never get over Portugal being included in this list and it immediately disqualifies for me all subsequent criticism of the EU as badly misguided. I don’t know the other countries on the list nearly as well, my experience with Portugal makes me suspect the entire anti EU argument is a argument in search of data instead of being based on data.
It's more like forcing your unemployed brother in law to always go to the fancy, expensive restaurant you go to with your high flying lawyer friends and then splitting the bill 50/50.
America does fiscal transfers. Poorer states get money from richer states. It wouldnt work if they were all routinely forced to borrow money and declare bankruptcy.
The EU does fiscal transfers too. Its 150 billion EUR budget isn’t anywhere near as large as the US federal one, but it’s definitely used as a tool to level up the poorer member states.
I'm Swedish and Croatian, I split my time between the two countries. So yeah, in the short term this is great.
But in the long term, any centralization of systems such as the EU, or NATO, is dangerous. Because if you consider that everything in the world is a system, and all systems have flaws, then global systems have global flaws and will be exploited on a global level.
We peasants just don't have the resources to monitor how the plutocrats of the world exploit the world's systems to remain in power over us.
On the other hand, it's not like divided Europe has such a glorious and glamorous history filled with freedom and liberty. To what degree the EU improves on that in the long term (i.e. the next 50-100 years, proper long-term) is an open question, but I'm cautiously hopeful. The EU is a fairly "weak" power and individual member states retain a high degree of autonomy; it would be significantly harder to truly "exploit" the EU in the same way a country's parliament can be corrupted: chances are a significant number of member states would put a halt to it, and/or the EU would simply break up or split.
NATO doesn't really centralize power IMO; it's a very short and straight-forward treaty; the entire thing is 2 or 3 pages of text. NATO countries co-operate of course, but so do many non-NATO countries, and it's decided on a case-by-case basis by the countries themselves. There is no "NATO organisation" that can tell anyone to do anything. In practice, the US is the "leader" of NATO, but even their power is very limited in practice. You may recall that little kerfuffle in Iraq where half of NATO basically told the US to go fuck themselves and their stupid war (leading to hilarities such as "French fries" being rebranded as "freedom fries").
Europe has many prosperous countries that are well managed. It looks like small scale countries (let's say Finland, Estonia) can have better governance. With the right design, EU can be a benefit to all of them without centralizing too much. That's what I hope for. Avoid the inefficiency and corruption of bigger empire-like states, while using the size of the EU to be able to survive in the global market.
You say "centralization" but EU and NATO countries gain massive amounts of power and strength from banding together. Tiny Croatia has no hope of protecting itself militarily or economically compared to being in those institutions.
In each case countries are eager to join because they have so many benefits.
Your claims about plutocrats work in the opposite direction: corruption and influence is worse, and the rule of law is less effective when a country is smaller.
> But in the long term, any centralization of systems such as the EU, or NATO, is dangerous. Because if you consider that everything in the world is a system, and all systems have flaws, then global systems have global flaws and will be exploited on a global level.
I mean things weren't exactly great before the EU and NATO tied Europe together - 10s of millions killed in two world wars in just 30 years.
> We peasants just don't have the resources to monitor how the plutocrats of the world exploit the world's systems to remain in power over us.
This is an understandable concern but on their own small countries struggle to effectively regulate large multinational corporations with revenues comparable to a country's GDP. I fear our only real hope of keeping the plutocrats in check is to band together.
Also, the United States works the same way. Only a few states produce most of the taxes that pay for the grifters like Mississippi. But it's good to do it because those people in the poor states wouldn't be able to survive by themselves. Everyone deserves a chance. It's sad the whole world doesn't get the same chance as those in rich big countries and unions.
Right, but let’s take California: home of tech companies, Hollywood, big ports, etc.
People in Mississippi are purchasing their products. That money then goes to those companies, employees there, and then the government in taxes. The same goes for Florida and Colorado for vacations, for instance.
They wouldn’t have nearly the same amount of tax revenue if it wasn’t for the other states buying their stuff.
these numbers make little sense unless you normalize to per-capita. CA and NY are probably still ahead, but less so. Then factor in people living at or below property line and so on, and after a while, it won't seem so unfair to the poor Californians.
NY and CA are pretty high on that list, but this is more current, and has them even closer to the top. Given that significant tax policy changes have occurred in the interim specifically intended to raise federal taxes on taxpayers from CA, NY, and similar states, that should be unsurprising.
> Given that significant tax policy changes have occurred in the interim specifically intended to raise federal taxes on taxpayers from CA, NY, and similar states,
Indeed, residents of these states were underpaying federal income taxes, and the law was changed to remove the loophole.
> Indeed, residents of these states were underpaying federal income taxes
More accurately, federal tax policy was previously neutral on state tax policy, and now it has an active thumb on the scale deliberately attempting to push state tax policy toward that favored by less-successful states.
The link I posted used 2016 data, and the link you posted uses 2017 data. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act mostly impacted 2018 taxes... so I would expect 2018 data to be even more different than the two data sets we have here.
I don't know anything about US states, but we have the same arguments here in the UK.
Living outside London, there's nothing I can do in my daily life that doesn't result in a net transfer of wealth from my self, or from the public domain, into the private sector and therefore into London.
Every private or public interaction I have has been financialised. be that being forced to keep a car, having children in school, getting sick, renting or owning a house.
I could go to toilet in the middle of the park and that would result in net movement of wealth to London and offshore (someone would be sub-contracted to clean the park).
You can't eat money. Those states you call "grifters" provide the food you eat, and the resources you need.
The dollar value of those things isn't high - financial and other services are "expensive", but ultimately useless, they just move money in a circle, but don't do anything to keep people alive and well.
The “federal dependency” metric you linked is extremely misleading, so much so that I cannot seriously believe it is a honest mistake rather than a deliberate deception. Quoting my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33796536
> for example, according to their methodology, a state that collects $1k in taxes per capita, and gets $4k from federal government, while spending $5k per capita, is more dependent on federal government than a state that collects $10k in taxes, gets $10k from feds and spends $20k, which is absurd.
For example, it fully ignores the large transfer of money from the federal government to government employees in Blue eastern seaboard states. The fed is a huge employer in many blue states. See also other methodological criticisms in this thread (e.g., its criteria for dependency is just wrong -- should be absolute Fed dollars spend per capita, but is instead percentage of spend). It also ignores the benefits to higher fed tax-paying states of having the lower-paying states in the union, which are not captured solely in tax flows.
What makes the GP statement untrue? I can imagine that cash flows between the US and states are dissimilar from those between nations that originate from trade - is this your qualm?
These "donor" state analyses are dishonest because they use % of state budget that's from the federal government as a key metric. This metric unfairly penalizes states that run lean governments. Further, most of this federal money is entitlement spending that's following poor citizens, like the impoverished people of the Mississippi Delta, and would accrue to them no matter what state they lived in.
it's dishonest, because it doesn't take account of the massive amounts of wealth going in the opposite direction. People's daily lives have been financialised to an extent that there is always a transfer of wealth in the opposite direction
In other states, those same people might not be so impoverished that they require the same amount of federal money to subsist. Perhaps running a "lean government" might have something to do with that?
Are they still at the bottom of the education and health standards after adjusting for income?
Hint: I wouldn't be asking this question if I didn't know the answer.
It's long since been established that pouring money at heatlhcare and education does not do much for improving outcomes. You need to somehow cultivate a culture of less dysfunction and money can't do that by itself. It take a sociopathical kind of dishonesty to sit there and tell us with a straight face that these states would be better if they just paid more taxes and ran higher touch governments. Even in states that want to run that way the ROI of each subsequent dollar is not great and a lot of these poorer states couldn't afford to run their states that way. It would be great if states like West Virginia could run expansive public healthcare programs like states like Massachusetts do but the money just isn't there and desire to run such a program and run it well isn't there either.
Well, the big difference is that the US have explicit transfer payments between states, but Europe originally did not envisage transfer payments between (sovereign) countries.
Now, of course, OCA (optimal currency area) theory predicts that we need 0. different currencies, or otherwise 1. homogeneity (ie similar response to external shocks) - not the case in Europe, or 2. perfectly free factor movement (where factors are basically capital and labour) - not the case in Europe (mostly due to language), or 3. transfer payments.
Given that 1, 2 are not the case, Europe, by entering the EUR (thus foregoing 0) has basically committed to 3 - transfer payments. So, yeah. The rich EU countries now must pay for the poorer ones - that's the long-term consequence of the currency union.
For the hi-tech and finance to function, where the riches come from, there needs to be a whole bunch basic needs met. Without energy, farming, cattling, fishing, mining, timber, transportation, etc, which are seeming cheap in value, there're no hi-tech industry or finance industry. These industries build on top of the foundations.
Mississippi is home to and end of the most important river in the U.S. if not in the world. The Mississippi River is absolutely vital to U.S. economies in the past hundred years and of now. It provides cheap and energy efficient transportation that ships goods and material around the country and to the world. Shipping is the cheapest form of transportation. The River is one of the biggest competitive advantage the U.S. has.
Under the highly financialised system we have, then it's not really about what Mississippi contributes to the other states, but more about what the other states extract from Mississippi. From their natural resource and from their residents.
Wikipedia claims about $47k for Mississippi in 2022[1].
Figures for UK and Germany seem to vary quite a bit depending on who you ask.
One site gives about $45k for 2021 UK[2] with lower projections for 2022 (maybe more about GBP:USD than anything else). The same site gives German GDP per capita[3] around $43k 2021.
I don't have a good explanation for the methodological differences that are producing such different results for the countries.
Mississippi > Germany is an exaggeration, but how many people know that almost all U.S. states are wealthier than almost all European countries? Germany (the richest European country) would rank somewhere around 39th as a U.S. state (just below Tennessee and Missouri). In my experience this kind of banal statement of fact is treated with undue incredulity.
Until those grifter states cough west virginia cough keep voting for bad faith actors who systematically dismantle progressive reform and critical infrastructure spending at every opportunity.
German economic sociologist Wolfgang Streeck has written on the issue numerous times and considers the EU is an untenable house of cards that subsidizes poorly performing states and in doing so strong-arms them into capitulation with neoliberal reforms that erode safety nets and lower the standard of living in these countries in an arguably noble goal of elevating GDP and trade in a trickle-down fantasy. by making these countries tangibly worse, they drive immigration to population centers in the north like Germany and contribute to brain-drain and stagnation in the very countries they ostensibly seek to improve.
the alternative is to impose stricter controls on Germany such that it cannot use EU membership as an altruistic cudgel to march the continent into neufeudalist technocratic hell. its my prediction the children of the shengen generation in Croatia will look back on the moment with indifference or scorn.
So which exactly are the countries that are “tangibly worse” after joining the EU?
Let’s look at the past 40 years. Spain and Portugal have obviously gained immensely from membership. Sweden and Finland are better positioned inside the union than Norway which remained outside and became a rule-taker (implements EU law but gets no say). Former Soviet states like Estonia are very happy to be part of the West European community. Etc.
If you say “Greece,” then you’ll have to point to concrete evidence that the country would have somehow fared better outside the EU because it was such a basket case all along.
What about Bulgaria? Population decline, depressing cities except those by the sea. Mediocre airline carrier, surrendered to RyanAir and WizzAir. Talented youngster are taking off getting job in Germany or France. Only recent COVID-induced lockdowns and rise of WfH made some of them to return.
> Maybe you'll say that the EU is great for small countries and not so much for larger ones, who are sponsoring the EU's success with their citizens tax money.
It's not that easy. Germany sponsors quite a lot of EU, however due to Germany's economic position the EU enables a lot of business across Europe with low friction. If Germany still had its own currency it would be too expensive for other countries, not to mention customs and common regulation.
For the citizen however it is mostly noticable by foreign workers migrating here, while going to Spain (Mallorca) or Italy for vacation is easy.
The EU was built with the core aim to get Germany and France closer after WWII. This is a glaring success, it is enough to see how the current generation of ~18 yo see the past history of our countries (they do not care, not have any resentment).
The EU today is extremely unevenly distributed and I would seriously love to read why France should pay xMM€ to the EU (what do we gain, exactly, in terms of money).
And then there are countries such as Poland that gets a great net income of money, but has a government that hates the EU. And buys weapons from the US or South Korea. Sorry, but this is for me a leech.
Some countries such as Portugal also were (and still are) net receivers, but do not shit on the hand that brings the money.
I understand common culture and what not, but ultimately we have problems with paying hospitals and doctors so the high level considerations are for another day.
I think EU is missing a balance. Economic and immigration agreements are great I think but EU leadership should be more democratic and EU itself should not be interfering with sovreignity of members and what laws that don't pertain to commece or immigration exist.
The primary benefit of the union is economic. Either it scales back to that state and expand or move to be more like the US with EU countries resembling a state or province.
EU should really focus on its economic power, other things are weakening it. Already both EU and NAFTA are not competing well outside their regional economy, not just with China but with other developing countries hungry for thr euro and dollar so they can be consumers instead of low wage producers only, yet they are being forced to depend on each other instead because EU like the US is interested in politics more than commerce.
The more state-like evolution is also causing economies like Germany and France to dominate and be burdened with many things. A commerce first union would dynamically adjust incentives to allow all members to improve and bear economic burdens more fairly.
Lastly, commercr can't be maintained without military+intel. This means seriously considering booting members friendly to hostiles like Hungary with russia and have a mutual aid agreements like with NATO where members can fight of agressord like russia or china as a united force.
My biggest concern about the EU is that it is too early to judge. The US is a similar experiment but over time we've seen great political and regional divides.
The moment that countries begin to feel EU rules are stepping too far is the moment that things will start to break down. If you avoid the issues of federal overreach that exist in the US and ensure each country fully maintains its own sovereignty then IMO everything will be fine.
When the freedom to disagree goes away, tensions will rise though.
There are mixed views. I think that is healthy and normal.
And as ever, hearing dissenting views helps one strengthen their own position.
I'm not sure what the key is here, but maybe it is this.
> Are the countries supposed to split up and go back to competing with each other in an increasingly harsher global market?
countries are still competing with each other inside the trading block, only they have had many of the advantages they used to have available to them - e.g. their currency and central bank, their deficit spending, the ability to control inputs to their economy - taken away.
It's a trade off. It may be right, it may be wrong, but there's a lot of looking at the EU from one perspective only, it's nice to hear other perspectives.
For me, I don't see how a EU that doesn't federalise, i.e. doesn't have a single economic policy, doesn't have a single demos, can survive.
But even then, most of us live in countries that do have a single fiscal policy, a single demos, a freedom of movement of labour, goods, capital etc within our own country; and still it doesn't work without massive compensation to correct the inequalities that it brings. We have domestic governments trying (or most often not trying) and failing to deal with this imbalance even within a country.
I don't see how this will ever be possible at a supernational scale.
The single reason the United States works is a unified monetary policy. With a common currency but no single monetary control, we will see endless replays of Greece 2015. It is fundamentally unfair for countries like Germany to enforce austerity on sovreign nations for their own fiscal issues, without a reciprocal ability to declare bankruptcy or expect financial assitance from a central bank.
but the US doesn't work.
It has massive regional inequality, in addition to racial and generational.
There is massive household debt.
It can't function without massive amounts of undocumented labour.
Nearly all economic activity is done in a few cities. Many places are over populated compared to the infrastructure (unaffordable housing prices) and many places have lost all their youth.
Most companies are registered in a tax haven state. etc.
It does have a single demos, which is something the EU doesn't currently have.
People will accept in some way to see federal money directed (or debt guaranteed) at communities they are geographically distant to, yet feel solidarity with in some way.
I personally feel the demos issue is the key rather than the monetary policy.
“The US doesn’t work” can only be taken as rhetorical. Perhaps you feel it doesn’t “work” well, and certainly you’ve identified serious flaws. But it’s still there ticking along… if it doesn’t work then “work” is just shorthand for “work the way I want” which isn’t particularly interesting or useful.
Separately, I’m not sure that US folks are actually any better at accepting the distribution of their taxes far afield than anyone else but I suppose that could make sense.
The great success of the EU is that it has stopped the member countries from going to war with each other. Apart from that it is an expensive, overreaching institute of busybodies with very little democratic control.
Some of the policies the EU pushes are good, some are bad. But the people have no say either way.
> The great success of the EU is that it has stopped the member countries from going to war with each other.
You’re confusing the EU with NATO. The EU has no role whatsoever in defence policy, and can claim absolutely no credit for peace in Europe. Neither during the Cold War (how would that even work? Occupied Germany somehow invading France? Most of Europe weren’t even members then), nor now. Zelensky isn’t travelling to Brussels to give a speech to the European Parliament, he’s flying to Washington instead. NATO.
It’s not about defense, how are you going to go to war against a country that shares your currency, your market and your rules and that has basically no border control with you?
> It’s not about defense, how are you going to go to war against a country that shares your currency, your market and your rules and that has basically no border control with you?
Since civil wars have happened quite a bit, this seems…less difficult than you assume.
That's utter nonsense. The people who elect EU leaders, shape EU law make and decisions on it are the members of the governments of the EU states, who are duly elected by their constituents. The less powerful EU parliament is also democratically elected by EU citizens.
So, as you describe, the people who make these very important decisions are two steps away from democracy, the public has no way to hold them responsible for their actions and they are elected in politicized back room deals.
In turn, the people that the public gets to vote for are the ‘less powerful’, they are never on the news and it is totally unclear what they are even doing. All that is on the news are the undemocratically chosen people. It’s really not surprising that most people don’t bother voting for the EU and that a lot of them would vote to leave immediately given the chance.
> the people who make these very important decisions are two steps away from democracy
What are you talking about? Members of EU member governments are directly elected by citizens, they're the ones making the decisions at the EU.
The administrators of the EU elected by governments, but they do no vote on, and have no power over legislation. All voting power comes from members governments, just like they vote for their own national legislation.
Give it up, you just have no idea how the EU works.
> The German Constitutional Court referred to a "structural democratic deficit" inherent in the construction of the European Union.
But the reality is that the undemocracy of the EU shows in the rules it produces. For example a functioning democracy doesn’t get away with wasting hundreds of millions on moving its seat between cities, for no practical reasons. A functioning democracy doesn’t get to push for an end to cash money and a start for monitoring every significant bank transaction, with no pushback from the electorate. And there’s plenty of other rules to choose from.
I think it might have to do with EU's "anti-business" tilt, as many might see it, but we can observe the effects of runaway wild-west Capitalism as well.
There is something to be said for trying to keep basic civilizational order amidst uncontrollable greed and an ocean of dark money, with just a few men getting obnoxiously rich and then using the resources to "burn it all down" because they feel victimized. Or something.
Being an Anglophone who spent most of 2022 criss-crossing Europe, please direct me to where this European Wild West capitalism is.
European elites enrich themselves by legislative capture. In any true Wild West capitalism, European elites would fail immediately, because they’re so utterly uncompetitive. That’s why no such “Wild West” capitalism exists anywhere near Europe.
But there’s no shortage of invented horrors about “Wild West” capitalism in Europe - this, in the same countries you need a government license to be self employed, where starting a business is next to impossible, and God forbid you use this word for your wine unless it was produced in these precise ten square metres of France - the same ten square metres conveniently owned by the same families who send their sons and daughters to write this legislation.
Europe is a corporatist, aristocratic economy that keeps its people in check by keeping the prosperity and freedom of actual capitalist societies from them, and by inventing capitalistic boogeymen to maintain the legislative moat built around its elites.
The EU countries could have simply cooperated and agreed not to charge extra fees on trading among them or having each other citizens visiting (or why not extend that to the entire world) without giving away their monetary freedom and allow bureaucrats in other countries to dictate their laws
If we're going to be objective, technically the Chinese Communists are the greatest success for humanity; I think they've overseen the biggest upwards change in living standards from when they came to power to today (even after the regressions of the Cultural Revolution). They have done a better job of preserving peace than almost any alternative superpower except maybe India.
The CCP is still a disaster. The EU has the same nature - just because great things were achieved and the EU was the political organisation present doesn't mean the EU was good. It might be, I don't have any particular view. But it is interesting that the EU has serious energy problems, brewing war on the border implying diplomatic failures and is largely reliant on American military assistance. These are points against it. HN has celebrated their redesigning the iPhone to use a more standard connector though so there are pro- and con-.
> HN has celebrated their redesigning the iPhone to use a more standard connector though so there are pro- and con-.
Can't tell if you're being flip, so I'll add this one: the ease of producing products in country A and shipping them to country B without having to go through customs.
Given that Brexit happened and companies which predate Brexit still exist in the U.K., the reader has plenty of data to decide whether this constitutes a significant digit in the "pro" column.
It is extremely arguable whether the EU is necessary for that though. There is no magic barrier preventing goods moving across the border except that the customs department decides to interfere.
> Can't tell if you're being flip
I can't tell if HN is being flippant. I've never seen such unanimous approval for a powerful entity engaged in triviality. The world has not confronted the level of threat we currently have of international industrial war for 70 years, and one of things that most bought people together celebrating the EU's contribution to the world seemed to be ... phone charger cables. It seemed to be the stand-out example of the EU doing something simultaneously newsworthy, well liked and good, which is concerning.
People in the halls of power in the EU don't seem to have been focusing on the important issues if issues like that are what generate praise. Doubly so because the EU has failed to produce anyone who knows how to design a good phone. All the industrial muscle for that is in Asia and America along with the track records of success.
> It is extremely arguable whether the EU is necessary for that though.
We were talking about the very real pros and cons of the EU.
You provided a single "pro" EU datum about chargers that is a) real and b) IMO trivializing at best wrt the benefits of EU-membership as the EU currently exists.
I gave you what I considered to be a more representative example: the convenience of shipping times/costs intra-EU. Brexit gives us plenty of data to compare pre vs. post on this issue.
Now you're waxing philosophical about whether the EU is necessary to achieve the "pro" that I gave you.
It's as if I just slid down the flagpole in Super Mario Bros., but now the game wants me to go backwards and consider how to build other routes for this same level.
That suggests there is a problem with the local policies. I recall when the US had that baby formula crisis and people couldn't import the stuff because of local policies. Which is obviously stupid. There were starving babies. US babies aren't that different from EU, APAC, or South American babies.
The crisis was a self inflicted wound. And by far most of the time, the idea that a good is OK in one country but unacceptable in another is silly. It is quite rare that a good that can be sold somewhere needs to be restricted somewhere else. It happens in rare cases, but far less than most policies would have us believe.
> the idea that a good is OK in one country but unacceptable in another is silly.
Goods are produced under very different standards, different subvention systems, different economic systems, different economic policies, ...
For example in the EU the Chinese Covid vaccine(s) have no permissions. Likewise China does not allow European vaccines to be imported. Each country has their own reasons for that. It's not because the regulators are silly. It's because they have different standards and different interests.
In large free trade zones and joint markets like the EU, there are common standards and a common court for disputes. The EU as a union, just like any country in the world, negotiates the trade agreements with other countries, ...
That example does sound a bit silly. I took an American one. I'm not American. I'm fine. They're safe enough. The vaccine doesn't know it moved countries. Why shouldn't people in China be able to use European vaccines? Are their policies not evidence based? Are we going to call Chinese people unvaccinated en mass until they take European vaccines? If not, why can't Europeans use Chinese vaccines?
> Goods are produced under very different standards, different subvention systems, different economic systems, different economic policies, ...
That isn't an explanation or an argument, that is just a list of things which are true. I'm happy to read that list and then buy things that are different from what I'm used to. I'll buy stuff made by Communists, Capitalists, Muslims, fools, industrialists; all good enough for me. Halal kebab makers are the only true kebab makers! If a billion Chinese can use something without it being a problem, it seems quite likely that I can too. We're all the same species and have mostly the same problems.
It doesn't actually make sense that I need a foreign union to negotiate to let me use foreign goods. My own government could, I kid you not, just let me buy what I want and get it shipped over. It'd be easier. The local standards aren't perfect.
How did I know that? Because, the EU and the US work closely together and the regulations make sure that they work with common standard levels.
Each country has a system which regulates which vaccines it considers safe. In EU this is expanded such that the permissions are valid for the common market. The EU has EXPANDED the region where vaccines are permitted under a common regulation, it has not reduced it. Just the opposite.
> Why shouldn't people in China be able to use European vaccines?
For example because China wants to reduce the influence of other countries? Because it wants to promote their own companies? Because foreign vaccines are too expensive?
> If a billion Chinese can use something without it being a problem
How do you know that it does not cause problems for you? Currently it looks like China has a problem with Vaccines.
> We're all the same species and have mostly the same problems.
That sounds silly. Governments, regulators, companies, ... all have different policies, interests, etc. That creates a lot of DIFFERENT problems.
> need a foreign union to negotiate to let me use foreign goods. My own government could
The EU is not a foreign union. It the Union I'm living in. Just like my city, my state, my country, the EU all have different responsibilities. Why should my country dictate laws to my city? It does. Because we are all the same species and have mostly the same problems. In my state, my country, the EU. Those all have negotiated the levels of power they are responsible for.
I mean, you're in a position where you live in the EU and took an American vaccine that was approved for use in the US.
All your customs office has contributed here is a rubber stamp saying "the work the Americans have already done is good enough" in case you are a jingoist who doesn't trust the US standard. The potential downside is if they vacillate then they'll delay the vaccine availability despite the fact that the option was available.
I put it to you that this is why the EU gets a lot of hate. People struggle to come up with examples of where it helped things along. There are decent odds here that Trump's policies did more for you on this topic than your own regulators, which I think it not be what you want in an example that you bought up.
> For example because China wants to reduce the influence of other countries? Because it wants to promote their own companies? Because foreign vaccines are too expensive?
You argue a few lines down that the Chinese have a problem with vaccines, so I put it to you that you actually believe the Chinese policy is worse than nothing. These reasons are terrible excuses for not letting a product over a border. Literally sacrificing lives for business interests in defiance of what a free market would do.
>> We're all the same species and have mostly the same problems.
> That sounds silly.
I'm not sure I can argue against this, but I urge you to reconsider what species you are a part of, and what the implications are if the problems are being created by the regulators rather than the underlying reality.
> All your customs office has contributed here is a rubber stamp saying "the work the Americans have already done is good enough"
The customs office does not test nor does it approve vaccines. That's done by the European Medicines Agency ( https://www.ema.europa.eu/en ). This Agency is under EU control. The respective US authorities are not under EU control, they are under the control of the US government.
I would also not expect that the US companies give me the same vaccines from the same production sites.
> who doesn't trust the US standard
I trust EU standards. Which my government can influence.
> People struggle to come up with examples of where it helped things along.
Maybe you, I can come up with lots of examples. EU standards are one. Your view on standards and regulations differs from most people.
> Literally sacrificing lives for business interests in defiance of what a free market would do
The Chinese market is not free. That should be known.
> but I urge you to reconsider what species you are a part of, and what the implications are if the problems are being created by the regulators rather than the underlying reality.
Nations, organisations, science, companies, money, laws, politics, ideology, are all reality. You seem to live in a fantasy world of 'species'.
Empirically, it's mostly been rural communities that have had their living standards raised (by moving into cities). It's not very pretty, but on a purely numerical level the benefactors far outnumber the hurt (using a very specific framing of increased lived experience).
I am not a fan of the CCP to put it mildly. China is the only country with poor Chinese people for a reason and the reason is the CCP. But in the 11 years I’ve lived in Shanghai things have quite visibly improved, in terms of infrastructure, quality of basically every consumer good, wages. Things have improved less here, relatively, than elsewhere.
The countryside is emptying of people in China as in every other country, just starting later and moving faster. Being a peasant is no fun. That’s why people leave as soon as they can.
How much countryside is there anyway? On the map, China looks like a tightly-knit mesh of huge multi-million cities, all with high speed rail and subway systems, and huge malls. I doubt they're as poor as miserable as they should be according to the picture painted.
> the EU has serious energy problems, brewing war on the border implying diplomatic failures and is largely reliant on American military assistance.
The first two are essentially just a matter of geography; pretty sure it would have played out the same in broad lines if there had been no EU. If anything, I expect it would be worse: a more divided Europe would have been easier to defy by Putin. To call this a "diplomatic failure" is a huge simplification; you can only do so much diplomacy with someone who is not willing to engage in diplomacy with you. Ask Neville Chamberlain how his diplomacy worked out.
The US is convinced it needs an humongous army to do all sorts of useful things, like dropping napalm on children in Vietnam, drone strikes on journalists, invasion of countries for no clear reason in particular with intentionally falsified data. You know, essential stuff like that.
I'm putting it rather sharply here and I do think the US military does good things too and I "half believe" in Pax Americana, sort of, but let's not kid ourselves and claim that the US military is needed for the defence of Europe. Defend from whom, exactly? Russia? The Soviet military was already collapsing in the 80s together with the rest of the Soviet union, and we've all seen how well they're doing in Ukraine. That view is about 50 years out of date. We even have our own nukes, should it really come down to it. And who else is there to seriously threaten Europe/EU militarily? No one, basically. Even during the second world war things are not as simple as "the United States single-handedly comes to save the day in Europe" as some Americans seem to believe.
> If we're going to be objective, technically the Chinese Communists are the greatest success for humanity; I think they've overseen the biggest upwards change in living standards from when they came to power to today (even after the regressions of the Cultural Revolution). They have done a better job of preserving peace than almost any alternative superpower except maybe India.
Huh!?
No way. The CCP is a massive failure economically.
Taiwan was part of China. Taiwan had massive growth while China was stagnant. Taiwan is one of the richest countries in the world, China is still one of the poorer countries in the world today. China ranks 66 below Costa Rica and Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
The true successes are places like South Korea and Taiwan that started exactly in the same place as China and delivered massive economic growth in an incredibly short time.
The Chinese Communists used capitalism to get their country filthy rich while the supposedly "capitalist" west turned into a bunch of socialist dictatorships with high taxes and regulations.
Nothing surprising, if not the fact the western citizens allowed it to happen without revolting. Most likely they were glued to their phones while it happened.
Look at the U.S. Do we have Iowa holding hands with California in a mutually respectful relationship of cooperation? No, it's just a fight to control the highest level of government that has all the power so that one group can impose its will on everyone else.
As an American, I can tell you that most states generally consider each other rivals, and oftentimes bitter. Texas would like nothing to do with California other than to help knock them down some pegs, for example.
But you know what? If some outsider were to pose a serious threat to any of the states, we're all going to band together and tell said outsider to get wrecked and go pound sand. That same Texas would be among the first to come to California's aid and defence. The only one who gets to dunk on Americans are fellow Americans, nobody else.
>But you know what? If some outsider were to pose a serious threat to any of the states, we're all going to band together and tell said outsider to get wrecked and go pound sand. That same Texas would be among the first to come to California's aid and defence. The only one who gets to dunk on Americans are fellow Americans, nobody else.
It would have to be a very, very, unifying outside threat.
Division runs deep these days and it seems highly likely that any such external threat would be leveraged by the two teams to try to gain the upper hand resulting in further division.
fellow American here, re: "most states consider each other rivals," as a person who's lived all over the US, I strongly believe that feeling is in one direction.
There is all this rhetoric in red-state politics, governors shipping immigrants to NYC, Texans obsessing over Nancy Pelosi, babble about "east coast values." That shit simply doesn't exist in the other direction. It's true that coastal elites harbor a lot of resentment toward "rednecks" for things like the recent abortion ruling, but… they just don't obsess the same way. Mostly they just don't think about them at all.
That’s true. GOP Supreme Court picks have skewed far more towards elite libertarians than the actual GOP base. But Justice Barrett is a Midwestern church mom, which is a core GOP constituency.
And Clarence Thomas didn't move to DC until age 31, saying of his stint at Yale "I peeled a fifteen-cent sticker off a package of cigars and stuck it on the frame of my law degree to remind myself of the mistake I'd made by going to Yale. I never did change my mind about its value."
> That shit simply doesn't exist in the other direction. It's true that coastal elites harbor a lot of resentment toward "rednecks" for things like the recent abortion ruling
It certainly does exist when they think folks in red states are in a position to exert control over the national culture. Do you remember the Bush administration? Or the beginning of Trump’s presidency? People were pretty obsessive about him here in DC before he even did anything.
I'm not talking about individuals, I'm talking about masses of people. Of course blue state people hated Bush, and Trump, and Reagan… I'm talking about this weird notion that I hear from southerners that people in the city "look down on them." They don't. They don't think about them at all. I'm not sure which is worse.
You had a political zealot attack the home of a senior lawmaker and send her husband to hospital, and large swaths of the population cheered. I doubt the attacker was applauded only because he has an American passport.
California would immediately become a failed state on its own, unable to meet even the most basic needs of its residents. California MASSIVELY relies on other states for two of the most essential needs for modern civilization: water and electricity.
California, ecologically, is not capable of supporting its own population independently, and short of geo-engineering at continent scale nothing will ever change that. It has absolutely nothing to do with politics, economics, or any sort of issues like that, it's simply the geographic and ecological nature of the state.
Los Angeles, for example, would be impossible for it to exist without modern technology and mass importation of water, most of which comes from outside of California (although some comes from Northern California where it actually rains).
Anyone, like yourself, who seriously contends that California could survive on its own independent of the United States simply does not understand how anything works, water systems, electric systems, import/export economies, globalism, money movements between coasts, investment funding and how it is structured to take investments from the US heartland and VC companies in Californian tech. Your statement is not just a gross oversimplification of a LOT of complex topics, it's blatantly untrue in /every single/ one of those topics.
SoCal will just use NorCal water along with access to ocean desalination. For residential use, there is plenty, without needing to ship out water in the form of half of the US's fruits, nuts, berries, and vegetables. Solar ramp-up is progressing well, already at 17% vs. 50% natural gas, with battery storage to eventually buffer the rest of the 15% nuclear + hydro.
> SoCal will just use NorCal water along with access to ocean desalination.
There’s not enough NorCal water for that, which is why SoCal already relies on Colorado River water as well as NorCal water.
> For residential use, there is plenty, without needing to ship out water in the form of half of the US’s fruits, nuts, berries, and vegetables.
Sacrificing the state’s agriculture would…rather deeply harm the economy.
> Solar ramp-up is progressing well, already at 17% vs. 50% natural gas, with battery storage to eventually buffer the rest of the 15% nuclear + hydro.
Nearly a third of California’s energy is imported. displacing fossil fuels with clean renewables for in-state generation is good, but it isn’t self-sufficiency.
Right now, 80% of California water is used for agriculture. If you reduce the ag water usage that is shipping most of that produce to the rest of the country, CA has water for residential and ag. for its 39 million.
> If you reduce the ag water usage that is shipping most of that produce to the rest of the country,
Those aren’t gifts to the rest of the country (and, actually, much of it is exported directly internationally), they are cash crops, and the lifeblood of rural California.
This whole thread I responded to was about CA self-sufficiency and I was specifically arguing that CA can be quite self-sufficient.
> California would immediately become a failed state on its own, unable to meet even the most basic needs of its residents
Of course CA independence would be economically harmful and disruptive. Doesn't mean CA won't be able to provide its own water by taking an ag trade economic hit.
I don't understand how that's possible. I don't know of any lakes or rivers or aquifers larger enough to provide water to almost 40 million people in California.
Californian agriculture is 80% of water usage. That agriculture is largely shipped out of state, internationally, and supplying the rest of the US half of its produce outside staple grains: fruits, nuts, vegetables, berries, etc.
Desalination will likely be required long term for SoCal no matter what, but currently California is not capable of supporting the energy requirements of desalination to replace the water it gets from out of state. The vast majority of California water comes from out of state, less than 30% comes from sources in-state.
> The vast majority of California water comes from out of state, less than 30% comes from sources in-state.
That's quite a preposterous assertion. Source? CA has ~85% coming from the Sierra Nevada watershed, only 15% is the Colorado River at the bottom.
"California receives 75 percent of its rain and snow in the watersheds north of Sacramento."[0] CA is more than water self-sufficient if it loses the 15% Colorado River, but reduces the ag. water usage (80%) that ships out most of it to the rest of the states.
Secession itself tends to massively piss of the country from which one has seceded, which points to why this would be a problem for an independent California (unless it was a “Greater California” including the headwaters and course of the Colorado River, etc.)
In many cases, you see the opposite - a strong public sentiment to allow or even force secession of some territory that is perceived as a "burden". This is usually represented in economic terms - "why do we have to feed X?" - but it can also be motivated by culture, religion, ideology etc (but, quite often, still coached in economic terms).
> but any inner region if the USA would be super miserable as a sovereign state.
Would they? Would they really?
Sure they'd be poorer but they'd probably just consider that a really, really cheap price to pay for not having to share a country with California (or wherever the line is drawn).
Would you take a 10%-20% pay cut to get your way on almost all political issues? That's basically the bargain you're striking when you get out the map and draw a poorer but much more politically homogeneous state. I think most people would take the deal they'd do it with a smile on their face.
Independence doesn't really mean getting your way on almost all political issues, though. If you're independent but economically weak, you're susceptible from all kinds of pressure from your neighbors, and quite often that pressure is explicitly political (sanctions etc).
Despite all the bickering and backbiting and dysfunction in it, the overwhelming majority of its residents and polities do not want to see the union broken apart.
The strongest argument against growth of the EU is, quite literally, inertia. It's not a perfect union, but it's much better for its participants than being marginalized outside it.
> Are the countries supposed to split up and go back to competing with each other in an increasingly harsher global market? How on earth are the small EU countries supposed to compete?
By devaluing their currency to make their exports competitive and improve their unemployment. The European Union's currency umbrella is precisely why the PIGS countries have been suffering ever since the 2011 Euro debt crisis with general economic stagnation, and why the UK could escape it.
Nothing stops countries from making trade agreements with one another and still maintaining their economic sovereignty.
This is complete propaganda BS. The EU has broke smaller countries. Greece for example, might never recover. Worse, because of the freedom of movement, most of the youth are moving to the west (Germany, Netherlands, etc…) and this had made greece actually lose workers and population. Greece unemployment went down not because there are more jobs, but because there are less job’s seekers.
Your representative problem strikes me as very weird. Greeces own citizens are benefiting immensely as you say because now they can follow their preferred careers within the EU and enrich themselves and their family.
Surely it's the failure of their own government to provide a high value internal export and not the EU?
Blaming the EU for Greece’s issue is a real stretch…
Whether how the EU responded to the Greek crisis was all good or not is open for debate, I think we can nevertheless safely say that Greece was mostly responsible for its own debt and fiscal management problems.
Not saying that there was no mistake done when Greece joined the EU (actually I don't think Greece should have been allowed to join) but claiming that none of this would have happened if it were not for the EU is just bullshit. Greece was already corrupted, with really unhealthy economics.
They could have very well printed their way out of the problem and let everyone in the country pay for the mistake of the usual class of corrupted politicians.
Oh but they're in the EU now, they can't do that, so let's just let the peasants starve while the wealthy invest in german stocks.
I'm not saying Greece is a perfect system, but the EU way has been just way worse for Greek citizens.
I’m not saying it was bad for the greek (the people) but for the Greece (the country). Also, if you think long-term, it might not be that beneficial for the greek. Moving to another country incur extra costs, which could be avoided on your own country. Greeks might have been more well-off if their own country developed instead.
> Worse, because of the freedom of movement, most of the youth are moving to the west (Germany, Netherlands, etc…) and this had made greece actually lose workers and population.
Yes people should not be able to escape their governments' corruption and mismanagement, and suffer along with the rest of them.
Speaking as an American, my chief problem with the EU is that it's too big with wanton disregard for the histories of its constituent member nations.
EU member nations are countries with literally hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history, all with varied cultures and traditions. It is impossible to unify such peoples in as heavy-handed a manner as the EU without harming and even destroying the identities of those member nations.
Cultural and national pride are things that are very real and not something to be tossed aside, they are the identities of those peoples and deserve to be respected.
The EU damages such things by way of instituting a single currency, removing the concept of borders, removing a nation's sovereign right to fiscal and economical policies, and more. I feel part of the reason Brexit ultimately came to be is because British pride could not allow EU encroachment to continue any further, and the EU will see more Brexits again sooner or later unless those fundamental issues are properly addressed.
A federation of states works for the United States of America because our states are, at the oldest, merely 200~300 years old, with most holding common or at least very similar heritages. There are less obstacles for such a union to overcome to be successful. The EU's member nations are wildly different by comparison and it is foolhardy to think an even more tightly-federated EU would be successful just like that.
> hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history
lots of wars incl. the 1st, second and the cold war.
The EU has helped to create a larger Europe with much less conflicts. Having a single currency is a great advantage, borders are no longer necessary and, yes, nations are still responsible for their fiscal and economic policies.
> even destroying the identities of those member nations
the EU doesn't do that.
> EU will see more Brexits again sooner or later unless those fundamental issues are properly addressed
Actually it's the opposite. The UK was dumb enough to give up the single market, freedom of movement, common standards, common politics, solidarity, etc. The negative effects and the lack of positive effects of the Brexit are plain to see and the younger generation in the UK will demand the benefits back. Those lost the most because of Brexit.
The disintegration of the EU after the Brexit was always propaganda. If one read the British press, the EU was always collapsing the next day and the Eurozone would disappear. Nothing like that has happened, not even remotely.
> foolhardy to think an even more tightly-federated EU would be successful just like that
> Actually it's the opposite. The UK was dumb enough to give up the single market, freedom of movement, common standards, common politics, solidarity. The negative effects of the Brexit are plain to see and the younger generation in the UK will demand the benefits back. Those lost the most because of Brexit.
> The EU is already a huge success.
I'd love to hear some proof of this
That's debatable and you'd want to bring some data if you're debating this.
I live in EU but I'd live in the UK if it weren't for the horrible weather.
At least they don't have the immigration and poverty of the local population problem (which turns into thefts) that southern europe has.
Not to mention the covid bill which we'll have to pay within 10 years which the UK skipped.
Brexit makes it all only worse. Now you need to compare the UK with the poorer regions of the EU to look better. The UK itself has one extremely rich region (inner London) and a lot of medium to poor regions.
> Speaking as an American, my chief problem with the EU is that it's too big with wanton disregard for the histories of its constituent member nations.
>
> Cultural and national pride are things that are very real and not something to be tossed aside, they are the identities of those peoples and deserve to be respected.
>
> The EU damages such things by way of instituting a single currency, removing the concept of borders, removing a nation's sovereign right to fiscal and economical policies, and more
You're missing the point of the EU. The EU was literally created to do this and to tone down national pride.
The purpose of the EU was to prevent wars in Europe. Europe was a hotbed for wars for hundreds of years. WW1 was not that special! We had countless wars in Europe, even wars that would be considered world wars in retrospect like Napoleon's romp across the continent.
The founding idea of the EU is to intertwine countries, remove barriers between them, so that Europeans stop trying to kill one another because of cultural and national pride. That's why there are no borders, why there's a single market (the very origins of the single market are in tying together steel production between EU members so that they couldn't easily detach from one another and create their own war machines again), why there are common rules, etc.
> EU member nations are countries with literally hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history, all with varied cultures and traditions. It is impossible to unify such peoples in as heavy-handed a manner as the EU without harming and even destroying the identities of those member nations.
The EU doesn't really "unify" all the countries in to one. The US federal government has significantly more power than EU parliament has in many areas.
I also can't think of a single area where I feel my national identity is being destroyed or taken away from by the EU. In what ways does it do that?
> A federation of states works for the United States of America because our states are, at the oldest, merely 200~300 years old, with most holding common or at least very similar heritages
There's a reason for that, which is that the US conquered or subjugated its neighbors rather than peacefully federating with them, and US states accepted a substantially lower level of sovereignty than any EU member. Texas tried to "Texit" only 16 years after it joined the US, and it received far less accommodation than the UK did in leaving the EU.
This is utter nonsense, so completely removed from reality.
Countries in the EU are not losing their national identity or culture, not even remotely. I'm guessing you have never been anywhere near an eu country. My country has been in the EU for 50 years this year. Our identity has not changed in that time, we haven't lost our culture and we are definitely still as proud as ever.
You have been reading or watching something crazy, it's making a fool of you.
> EU member nations are countries with literally hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history, all with varied cultures and traditions.
What a load of tripe. European nations are a relatively modern invention. Historically Europe has been ruled by various empires. Europe has historically looked more like the EU than a collection of countries. And though it all the local (mostly regional) culture has survived and thrived.
The problem with EU is (in my opinion) that a rich minority in Brussles dictates everything that has to be applied also for poor countries, such as romania, bolgaria and also now croatia. Eg sanctions regarding gas/oil imports from russia affect the heating (and electricity and transport) costs for all eu citizens, but while house and apartment sizes may be the same (and amount of heat needed too) paying 200eur, 300eur more per month is relatively easier for an average belgian citizen than for someone living in a smaller, poorer country.
EU has changed from an open market with very little reglation (relative to now), to an organization which dictates many more things than people would take for granted.
On the other hand, this is offset by smaller and poorer countries getting more of the EU money, but if you're not the direct recipient, you just get the regulation and higher prices with zero benefits... well, until the germans get fed up with working and paying high taxes for poor countries to get the money.
As someone from a country which has been in EU for almost 20 years, it's hard to predict anything, but we're probably better off being a part of eu (compared to if we stayed out), but there is a large anti EU sentiment growing, especially in the last few years, and even more hate concentrated against individuals, such as Ursula von der Leyen etc.
Adopting the euro in the current incomplete state of the EU's financial and economic integration is a fairly risky business as other countries found out the hard way
Croatians probably bet that the EU will - eventually - deliver on its promises.
Its not a crazy assumption.
The repeated existential crises might convince Europeans of their joint destiny. The result could be a prosperous, peaceful continent that is a role model for how people can coexist.
Croatia has effectively adopted the euro for decades. Most property (and other large) transactions are executed in euros and people have taken out loans in euros. The Croatian central bank understands that a good chunk of the economy already works in euros and has had a policy of keeping the kuna steady with the euro, even before it was required.
The biggest differences besides the different banknotes is that exchange rate risk has been eliminated, interest rates have gone down and Croatia's credit rating has gone up.
> The biggest differences besides the different banknotes is that exchange rate risk has been eliminated, interest rates have gone down and Croatia's credit rating has gone up.
I'm not suggesting for one minute that Croatia now is in the same state as Greece was 20 years ago. but improved credit rating based on the idea that the currency is effectively backed by the German and French economy, was one of the reasons for the debt crisis. German and French banks loaned them money that they shouldn't have, knowing that they would get bailed out.
Good luck to them though. It seems to have a similar population size to Scotland, so is interesting in terms of the independence debate in the UK.
The improved credit profile is due to the positives of have the same currency as your major economic partners, also because Croatia cannot unilaterally devalue the euro.
Croatia has a good credit rating because it's shown fiscal restraint, but for the given good work it's done on it's fiscal position, it's now getting an even lower rate.If Croatians started acting like Greece, that wouldn't be the case. Investors have learned their lesson.
Keep in mind that Schengen mostly affects visa-free tourism. The EUs single market freedom of movement (which massively expands opportunities) is a different, unrelated concept.
On the downside, if you're a long-term tourist inside Schengen, your 90 day limit over last 180d rolling window now includes Croatia. Can't "earn" more days in Schengen by spending time in Croatia.
Hopefully nobody asks for proof of all my "visits" to Andorra ;)
heh, driving into Croatia. Hand over passports to the first guy, answer a few questions and we drive off. See guy in the rear-view yelling and waving his arms at us.
Turns out that immigration is at the booth, then the guy standing around ahead is the customs guy you're supposed pull ahead and stop for. Oops.
Looking forward to using some of the "EU traffic only" backroads crossings into Croatia that were inaccessible to me.
When EU countries could have been forging ahead, building on the natural base of social democracy and technological advancement, e.g. to become world leaders in future energy . Instead they have spend 20 years dealing with the internal inconsistencies and self imposed limitations of a single currency without a single fiscal / monetary policy.
I don't see it changing, but who knows.
EDIT. I do wish people would post counterpoint, rather than vote down something that I explicitly stated was my own humble opinion, and indeed ended on a conciliatory sentence.
Down votes really should be used for trolling, or off topic to the poster they are replying to, not as a lazy way of replying.
The single currency was an enormous boon to surplus countries (i.e. net exporters) and an enormous detriment to deficit countries. Couple to that the atrocious, almost criminal handling of the Eurozone crisis.
Nonsense. The countries that are in line for this will peg their currency to the euro just like NL did before the euro with the German Mark.
If anything the local population that does not yet have the euro for everything is being scalped by their banks: debts are in euros but income is in the much weaker local currency. Most of them can't wait to switch but the access criteria are still fairly strict. Yes, the exporters also have a benefit: mostly because of the enlargement of the single market. But this is still within Europe, the comparison should be with the countries outside of Europe and then suddenly being part of a larger trade bloc with a single currency is a huge advantage.
Discussions of the EU seem to me to omit its most important functions:
1. Prevent war. The EU was designed for this purpose, after centuries of European warfare, by the survivors of WWII. You can't overestimate the damage WWI and WWII did to Europe; the next one would utilize more powerful means of destruction. You can see the problem with European conflict in the news right now.
2. Power: In a world of giants, with power already in the relatively massive US (fortunately an ally to EU countries), and shifting to some degree to China and India, little Croatia (or UK, IMHO) is a tiny minnow. The EU is a major power - the world's largest economy, IIRC.
#2 also impacts the US, and freedom and democracy, considerably. China's population relative to the US is about 4x, which is not far off the US relative to the UK. If China develops to even half the per capita productivity of the US, its economy will be ~twice as large. The same goes for India (which IMHO is a greater danger - people have their heads in the sand about Modi's openly aggressive nationalism). Without the EU as an ally, the US may be too small to compete.
I'd caution people against forming strong opinions about Indian politicians based on western coverage of them. It comes across as uninformed and politically motivated.
I don't understand what you mean by nationalism here. Modi has made no attempt at expansionism or hawkish interference into other nations. Unlike the Congress, they have not sent in military to suppress political insurgencies in other nations (LTTE & Srilanka), and hasn't been putting opposition in prison (Indira Gandhi & Emergency).
Modi has maintained a cordial relationship with Sheikh Hasina's Bangladesh, send aid to Srilanka during their political implosion & has kept things generally quiet against Pakistan (a terror state). Each of the altercations against China have come after the CCP initiated aggression. On the economic front, he has opened the nation up to foreign investment in a way that rejects nationalism derived isolationism. India has also refused to engage in economic-warfare through sanctions like most countries in Europe.
The only nations that can afford to not be nationalistic are nations with no real threats. European egalitarianism came from the knowledge that the US covered its defense and strict immigration protocols keep non-Europeans out rather effectively. Now that we have seen a wave of unforeseen immigration & Russian military activity, the dormant nationalism among these same nations that lectured the world has sprung into action once again.
Name a country with real threats that is less nationalistic than India. It isn't a dirty word. There has been wide-spread bi=partisan agreement on this in India [1]. The only reason Modi appears nationalistic, is because of the wanton disregard Rahul Gandhi (and specifically him, less so than the party) shows towards the geopolitical interests of the nation.
> I'd caution people against forming strong opinions about Indian politicians based on western coverage of them. It comes across as uninformed and politically motivated.
I'd caution you about assuming where people get their information, or trying fruitlessly to reject all information in a very broad category.
> It isn't a dirty word.
It very much is a dirty word, that leads to war and brutality (including against Muslims in India). It was a/the primary cause of WWII, according to people like Churchill. It was outside mainstream politics for generations until the recent far-right nationalist-populist movement, which got power and - predictably for nationalists - try to overthrow the democratic power of the people. It leads to the worst of humanity.
Your portrayal of Modi is bizarre misinformation. Modi and the BJP openly sell themselves as open, aggressive Hindu nationalists.
Modi and the BJP arrests opposition voices, limit free speech, and most of all promotes brutality against a religious minority. India is a declinining, less free country.
Some people still use stats from 2008. Since then EU is flat, both USA and China growing like crazy. India might catch up with EU in the next 20 years as well.
Between 2010 and 2018, no country in the Eurozone increased their GDP per capita by 1% or more annually. Finland and Italy both experienced negative GDP per capita growth. The actual reality is that Europe is the single most economically stagnant region in the world. Whether that is due to the EU or not is absolutely an open question though.
Romania experienced extreme per capita growth over that period ~51%, or 5.3% ish per year.
But if you want to cherry pick a few years it’s worth understanding the details. Germany’s per capita income increased from 41,572$ in 2010 to 47,974$/year in 2018 that’s a 15.4% increase despite a 14.4% drop in 2015. Notably that 14.4% 2015 drop was was linked to over 1.1 million asylum seekers from the Syrian War and part of a huge wave of legal and illegal immigration. Exclude that 2015 and Germany saw roughly the same per capita growth rate as the US.
> Some people still use stats from 2008. Since then EU is flat, both USA and China growing like crazy. India might catch up with EU in the next 20 years as well.
They are a member of the EU, but the seven non-eurozone members of the EU are Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden.
I also pointed out that BlueTankEngine‘s statements about the eurozone was also wrong.
The EU should be an independent power standing on its own two feet, it has the size and strength for that, and should seek its own profitable relations with both the US and China, and other powers like India, equally.
The idea that the EU is to be 'allied' with the US against China is an US-centric view, and implies subservience to the US because the goal really is to protect the US' position in the world. The EU should do what serves its interests best and that is not as hard a stance on China as the US would like.
Europeans can defend themselves against all realistic threats. Through France they even have an independent nuclear deterrent.
The claim that Europe needs the US is like an abusive relationship where the abuser keeps devaluing its victim to maintain dominance: "you need me, you're nothing without me, you can't look after yourself without me"...
More generally, be it with the EU, China, or even India, the US need to come to terms with the fact that they are no longer the 'capo di tutti capi' and should treat others as equals.
I realise that this is a position that is in China's interests but that is also in Europe's interests and, really in "anyone that is not the US"'s interests.
> I realise that this is a position that is in China's interests but that is also in Europe's interests and, really in "anyone that is not the US"'s interests.
It's not in the interests of people who want to be free, and desire peace and prosperity.
The subtext of these arguments is that there is no difference between China and the US, their vision, their goals, etc. It's demonstrably untrue. You can see it in the number of allies China has, even in their own neighborhood - they all much prefer the US.
> The EU should do what serves its interests best and that is not as hard a stance on China as the US would like.
This might be unpopular, but I think you are right. The EU must not be too aligned with the US, lest it gets dragged in the next Iraq. And, to be fair, it is valuable for the US to have an external point of view they can still more or less trust, but that can still be critical. You need friends to tell you when you’re doing a stupid mistake. At the same time, the interests of the US and the EU converge very often and unfriendly relations would be counter-productive.
It’s also useful to be able to play good cop/bad cop, with one partner being more accommodating like during the negotiations of the Iran nuclear deal (which failed in the end for unrelated reasons, but I believe we would have avoided a lot of grief regarding drones in Ukraine if we’d have kept the Iranian government on board).
> The idea that the EU is to be 'allied' with the US against China is an US-centric view, and implies subservience to the US because the goal really is to protect the US' position in the world.
The goal is to protect and grow freedom and democracy, and prosperity. Those require the international rules-based order (essentially, the equivalent of rule of law internationally) or you end up with rule by force, including war and oppression. To support that, you need a power able to act effectively and in a timely manner. The US has been the only option for that role since WWII, and Europe has strongly supported it.
Right after WWII, Europe was much too poor and devestated to play that role. Now they have the resources but not the political ability to make decisions and act: The US needs one person, the president, to act (within the law and in concert with others to make it politicaly viable). The EU requires approval by the leader of every country. As Kissinger famously said (paraphrasing): 'If I want to call Europe, who do I call?'
> Despite EU having 100+ million bigger population than USA!
Because it took in a lot of poorer nations after the fall of the wall. Especially those who were in the Soviet block. The USA had nothing like that. The USA has a single market and the leading currency. Without the single market Europe would be much further behind.
Part of the attraction of the EU for those countries was and is that trade and economic development is easier for those nations inside the EU.
I would suggest that NATO was the main reason for relative peace in Europe from 1945 up to 1991.
After that things went very wrong, culminating in what we have today. Russia could have been part of the EU, as was certainly possible especially given the completely new dynamic that existed after the fall of the soviet union. That would truly have been a positive project.
I don't know if we could ever have undone the mistakes that were made from 1991 onwards, plenty of people tried to include Russian nationalism into international politics, but by then it was far too late, we were dealing with a mess that we had created.
For the last 10 years they have done the opposite and tried to legitimise themselves against this bogeyman i.e. implicitly stating that your only alternatives are a socially and economically liberal democracy that seems powerless to address systemic issues, or socially reactionary forces.
But the later keeps becoming more prominent due to the failure of the former.
Not in the time frame you're implying. In 1991, the EU did not even exist in its current form (it was established in 1993). Eastwards expansion only started in 2004, when Poland and Czechia were among the first former iron-curtain countries to join. Putin became PM of Russia in 1999.
Is only the US allowed to be nationalistic? India isn't actively destabilizing the middle-east since the 2000's, but they are the ones being agressively nationalistic?
No, the EU started as a trade alliance and evolved into the bureaucratic behemoth it is today. It's a large part of why they have so many issues they've basically created the problems we had with the articles of confederation. A federal power without enough authority to resolve a lot of issues.
> No, the EU started as a trade alliance and evolved into the bureaucratic behemoth it is today.
This a very limited reading of History. The main purpose of the coal and steel community was to make war between France and Germany impossible by making both countries dependent on each other. Read the Schuman declaration and the first Rome treaties, they are not that complicated. It always was political.
the original impetus being to use trade to solve a political problem, but the original impetus was not federalism, although I imagine there were federalists around at the time.
at some point it became about free trade. and then there was a realisation that free trade between unequal economies was not sustainable. And similarly that consumer rights in a world where infrastructure and technology barriers had been removed, were also not sustainable via the protectionism that public ownership and state control provided.
There was then a need to control the excesses of free markets and the four freedoms in general, and the need to liberalise sectors that were not in the private space.
Well, yes and no. What actually happened was that a united Europe was the desired outcome, with some discussion about the degree of unity. But they realised back in the 1950s that it would take some time, and they started doing it by steps, starting with the industry. So in that sense it was both. But that’s not what people mean when they moan about the EU being a perversion of the EEC which was supposed to be purely economic. It is usually followed by how the evil EU duped them and stole their sovereignty. It was not. The economic policies were tools to achieve a political goal.
> but the original impetus was not federalism
The original impetus was a political union to avoid war and an “ever-closer union”. While federalists were never the majority, the target was clearly integration. Again, this is in the preamble of the Rome treaty establishing the EEC.
> Hence the need for political union.
Again, this is backwards. Political union required economic union as a first step.
What was in the public realm is the only thing that matters.
The votes in the 70s / 80s, which were the basis of what we have now were about trade, not peace via trade.
you are referring to 'they' without qualifying 'they'.
Political union was never on a ballot paper in most countries. In the cases it was (Maastricht referendums) then it was not conclusive .
EDIT:
Apologies for being anglocentric, but the Labour (dominant political party in UK at the time) didn't seem to include inter-European aggression in its arguments against a supernational state in 1950
I see this argument about the bureaucratic Europe being presented a lot.
Please consider EU is not a de-facto federation, nor many of its founding members wants that.
So I am curious:
How would you envision the daily activity of an EU that should satisfy at least the following points:
- Countries does not want to delegate their full decision power to EU
- Each country wants to keep as much as possible their specific laws, habits, quircks while also wanting _easy_ access to the other country market, lands, citizens
- No country wants to be treated less equal then the others
- Still all countries wants to be together for a greater good (or maybe for the fear of what would happen if they will be alone - see UK now)
Thus I don't see any other way than having a big organisation that handles every small details, that handles with care each national pride and find the best way forward.
It might not seem that way but European countries still have in their collective memories both their own national pride, old disputes with neighbours and the memories of some extraordinary damaging wars.
And the reason it might not seem that European countries are still individual entities is EU. It managed to find the best path that is does not generate conflict.
It's the usual argument of EU hater but it's not based on any fact. The are 2800000 in US Federal government and 32000 in European commission. Lots of cities have more employee than the European commission. For example, New-York city has 325000 employees !
Yeah, always wonderes about that one. The US started as a loose confederation of nations (states), and that was solved by our Civil War. IIRC, that cost more American lives than every other war combined, including the unofficial ones.
EU countries also have huge taxes, taking 50% of your income directly and if we also calculate VAT and all indirect taxes like for electricity, taxes will be something like 80%. So basically for the most people in countries like Germany work doesn't worth it, because you can get almost the same income from the state as social help without doing any work at all...
But people in Germany do work. You could hardly pick a worse example for the claim than the German economy. The EU in general is incredibly productive. Last I knew (awhile ago), the only difference between EU and US productivity was that people in the EU had longer vacations.
Also, the wealthiest, most productive and innovative parts of the US have the highest taxes.
1. We can’t know for sure if the EU is preventing war. Smaller countries might think the EU is not serving them well and revolt. Germany might flip and decide to invade the other countries again. These things happened in a cascading and fast fashion in the past. There is no reason or proofs that suggests it can’t happen again. Of course, people who sells the EU will try to convince you of this, but they offer no detailed explanation of why it’s the case.
2. This is over-generalizing. A country like croatia might benefit more from being not into the EU. As an EU country they have to play by EU rules and standards. As a non-EU country, they can instead undermine EU policy (ie: lower taxes, cut standards, etc..) in order to attract companies (near-shoring).
> Without the EU as an ally, the US may be too small to compete.
The EU needs the US more than the US needs the EU. People who think the US is an ally to the EU are delusional. The US is undermining the EU to reduce its power and to reduce its dependency to it. The US will be happy to see the EU crash into a thousands easily manipulated city-states than the current status quo. Of course, there is the Russian threat for now which justifies the existence of the EU. But they are working on that (at the expense of the EU of course).
> There is no reason or proofs that suggests it can’t happen again
What we have seen is that EU-Europe has after hundreds of years of war now has a long period of stability. We see that it also has an effective EU-wide political moderation system for common values.
> As a non-EU country, they can instead undermine EU policy (ie: lower taxes, cut standards, etc..) in order to attract companies (near-shoring).
Taxes are not generally EU-wide regulated.
Near-shoring is much easier INSIDE the EU - being a near-shore offering company is inside the common market MASSIVELY simpler. That's for example why many German companies build factories in neighboring countries.
Countries geographically/economically next to the EU, but not inside the EU, are still under massive influence. Before the EU, most European countries synchronized their currency with the German DM (Deutsche Mark). There was also a monetary mechanism to do that. Basically the German central bank dictated much of the currency policy in EU, more or less indirectly. Nowadays that power has been delegated to the European central bank, where the German influence is reduced.
> The US will be happy to see the EU crash into a thousands easily manipulated city-states than the current status quo.
Not at all. Maybe the populist right of the republicans. Other than those, both Republicans and Democrats see the EU and its member states as allies. The EU provides stability and that is in the interest of everyone.
> the Russian threat for now which justifies the existence of the EU
The Russian threat justifies the existence of NATO. The EU has an independent justification of its existence. The existence of the EU is also a 'threat' to the Russian political system, since it exposes its lack of freedom, lack of democracy and the lack of prosperity of its people. Russia has nothing comparable to offer to its people and also not to the countries it tries to control.
These are all just words with no basis; stating something is 'possible' just because we can type it doesn't mean anything.
> We can’t know for sure if the EU is preventing war. Smaller countries might think the EU is not serving them well and revolt. Germany might flip and decide to invade the other countries again. ... There is no reason or proofs that suggests it can’t happen again.
We can't prove anything about politics, if you mean 'prove like mathematical theorems', but we are hardly completely in the dark. Nothing like what you describe has ever happened in any mature democracy, as far as I know.
> A country like croatia might benefit more from being not into the EU.
You can type 'might', but what does it mean? I might win the lottery. Putin might become a Quaker and reject war. Who knows?
The euro zone has a 10% inflation, higher than the US. The reason it does not raise rates is because of the sorry state of EU economies and public finances. That means inflation will remain elevated. I don't know if "work" is the right term. Some people seem to be very happy with money printing and cheap credit. They just don't like the consequences of their own actions.
A country that keeps rates at 2% when inflation is 10% has a fool (or a lawyer) as a central banker.
Slovakia is already in Eurozone and Schengen. Probably not same level as Ustaše and not openly celebrating faschism but there is party full of neonazis in parliament there.
German was the Nazi State in the WWII. It's one of the most strongly integrated countries in the EU. What does that have to do with anything? History should be remembered but we're not playing 2022/3 by the rules of the past. Generations come to fix the errors of past ones, otherwise what are we all doing here?
Germany was saved by the Americans (Marshal's Plan, look it up) so it could become a vassal state, which it still is to this day. With or without the Nazis, it does not matter to Uncle Sam. Just look at Ukraine.
"Generations come to fix the errors of past ones, otherwise what are we all doing here?"
Well, they aren't doing a really good job in Croatia, are they?
Because they're already EU members and jumping off the Eurozone track would require leaving the EU. Furthermore, the US really isn't interested in territory expansion (unless you're Greenland); we can't even bother to make Puerto Rico a state or American Samoa a territory.
Ecuador, El Salvador, Palau and East Timor did. Of course, it's "official" only on their side, the US hasn't endorsed it but they don't really care and couldn't do much about it even if they wanted to.
Having a common currency makes more sense if you can easily move to places that the monetary policy controlling supply of the currency benefits. US monetary policy is made to benefit US states, and Croatians cannot easily move there.
Having and managing your own currency costs resources that could be used for other things. Lots of countries are incompetent at managing their own currency, e.g. Argentina or Venezuela. Using the currency of a country with competent monetary management means you avoid those costs and problems.
This was downvoted but I think they meant in Croatia, specifically, which seems like the right answer to me to the question why they're switching to EUR instead (correct me if I'm wrong)
Well, yeah, of course it got voted down, there's a lot of American Exceptionalism on here.
No-one outside the US uses US dollars. People from the US come to the UK, for example, and kick up a fuss because they can't pay for anything "but everyone accepts the dollar!" No, they don't.
This is such a complex issue. It worked well for some, bad for others and nobody knows what the future holds, but one thing is for certain: they're trading away part of their sovereignty, make no mistake about that. Some would say, the most critical one. I guess we shall see how the future will play out. Good luck to Croatia.
Nobody is trading away any sovereignty. That's a mistake on your part.
Croatia is freely entering into this and is free to leave in the future as well, the same as the UK chose. This is a sovereign treaty like any other. They are not signing away their ability to change their mind in the future. So there is utterly no change in "sovereignty".
You do lose key levers when entering the euro ans Schengen. But this is a trade off and hopefully in 2022 countries do this with their eyes open.
On key aspect is that Schengen does not harmonise immigration policy and actual external borders' security but removes internal borders. And of course the euro means the country loses control over its monetary policy.
Well, crazygringo, let me issue & control your money for you then. Nobody said that they are forced. UK didn't adopted the Euro. It wouldn't have been so easy walking off in that case. I'm not so sure about the "free to leave" in the future part, considering the high cost that that would entail. And, in any case, in Croatia's case the advantages could very well outweigh the disadvantages.
Curious what do you think of the "West African CFA franc"?
Nothing of what you're saying has any bearing on the term sovereignty, which was your original point.
Sovereignty is a legal-political concept, and it has nothing to do with economic tradeoffs or benefits. Adopting the euro obviously has both potential benefits and potential drawbacks, and choosing to adopt it is rationally expecting that the benefits outweight the drawbacks.
But that's just purely a matter of pragmatic decision-making. It does not affect Croatia's legal sovereignty.
When a third party controls your currency, they have some very effective levers over you. Let's not even enter the beneficent/maleficent scenario of the said 3rd party. That's what I'm referring to in regards to sovereignty.
I'm sure you've heard of these sayings:
He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation.
Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes its laws.
> That's what I'm referring to in regards to sovereignty.
But that's not what sovereignty means. I don't know how to make that any clearer.
Yes there are levers, but that doesn't make Croatia any less sovereign. Sovereignty is a word with an established, defined meaning -- it's completely and totally separate from economic influence, which is what you seem to be referring to.
My suggestion would be to provide a reasonable definition of the word "sovereignty" which logically excludes the benefits or harms that a central bank may impose on users of its currency.
I was just happy they removed that f...ing barbed wire on border of CRO/SLO Istria which was put up after 2015. Whom ever in Slovenian government decided to do that, is/was a f...ing idiot as they did it just to show how "hard" they are on immigration.
Checks close to the border is how the rest of Schengen EU handles their borders as well.
In practice, you'll just be driving across the border without stopping just like you do when driving from Austria to Slovenia, Germany to Austria or any other border.
Looks like you didn't have to wait at Karavanke tunnel between Slovenia and Austria yet. Selective checks by Austrian police are practically hourly and they cause traffic jams up to Jesenice (10-15km) on regular basic during vacation season.
There's still the occasional customs check inside schengen, for example the flixbus from Prague or Amsterdam to Berlin always seems to get controlled by the German police and a drug sniffing dog.
At the moment, there are checks in quite a few places, we crossed over from Riga to Poland by bus a few days ago and they’ve checked the bus. But they were mostly interested in Russian passports and Visa. Similar from Germany to Denmark and Germany-Poland a few weeks earlier as well as Poland-Czech Republic-Austria.
I believe it’s mostly related to the war in Ukraine, since I had no similar experience in the more western parts of Europe (Austria/Germany, Germany/France)
Not necessarily true, any country can legitimately or not (there are some regulations on this practice, often breached) force them, for mere political shows of force too, here's one recent such example.
On my first trip from Czech Republic to Germany in 2008 (as a foreign student from Eastern Europe) I was surprised there was German police checking passengers' IDs. I didn't have all the required documents with me because I thought there would be no checks at all because I had a Schengen visa. Fortunately the police officers were pretty cool and left me alone after I explained who I was and why I didn't have all the documents with me.
France was still doing internal border controls at airports "temporarily for 6 months due to exception circumstances" but renews them repeatedly so it's not really temporary.
A big waste of time when they do this in Toulouse on a flight from Brussels when you could drive to France faster without a border control.
Most of EU has legally done this, but actual application is more patchy:
"Na celotni meji dela 1400 policistov, večina jih bo premeščenih v enote za izravnalne ukrepe, ki bodo selektivne kontrole potnikov, blaga in vozil lahko izvajale v bližini meje in v notranjosti države."
Roughly translated: 1400 police officers work at border. Most of them will be moved to other units, which will perform selective checks of passengers, goods and vehicles close to border and in country interior.
Yes, spot checks on the road are how Schengen EU handles border control in general across the board. This means that Slovenia will be aligning the Croatian border checks with all others being done across EU.
Wikipedia notes that the kuna has been pegged to the euro for some time:
> The modern kuna was introduced on May 30, 1994, starting a period of transition from the Croatian dinar, introduced in 1991, which ended on December 31, 1994.[10] One kuna was equivalent to 1,000 dinars at a fixed exchange rate. The kuna was pegged to the German mark from the start. With the replacement of the mark by the euro, the kuna's peg effectively switched to the euro.
So I doubt there will be much effect on the rate of inflation after the switch.