>Let's just say it's not great, but it sounds like you have an axe to grind so we should just leave it here.
It's against HN guidelines. Suggesting ulterior motives behind my comments, is seen as a comment made in bad faith.
Germany has great quality of life because it has managed to ship its underclass to East of Europe.
If you don't believe this is true then why EU doesn't have free trade agreement with China or India? Yea you may suspect that their cheap low quality product will flood local market and outcompete the local producers. But how about high tech producers who have vastly superior technology and productivity flood poor countries with their high quality but cheap to produce products? Is that fine?
All I am saying is, there should be no union and free movement of goods and people between poor country and rich country. When this happens, rich country becomes even richer and poor country does grow a bit but it's upside is limited in long run.
And any farmer in Romania who has sold his land to Automobile companies from Germany can attest to it.
Germany isn't a winner in EU because it's best, it's winner because it started off better. When EU was formed, German producers flooded eastern economies with their mass produced goods and bought out their lands and local companies. The opposite couldn't happen because Eastern producers were technically and capital wise behind.
Unlike others I don't really believe in moral superiority of West European countries the fact that France still gets royalities from Africa (stinks of Imperialism) and Germany cramming Romanian farm laborers by not even offering them "social distancing" reeks of exploitation.
As EU members figure out the con of perpetual poverty trap, they'll walk away from EU.