> I benefit when I can use a Latvian bank that does not take an arm and a leg for basic services, and when I can get decent and cheap goods from all over Europe. I benefit when I can go and work in another country with different opportunities. People who complain about the EU and inflation have no clue how it was before the single market.

So first off, there are many countries where moving is not just a walk in the park within the EU. There are some countries where you can just show up with your bags but it's definitely not all of them.

Then about the cheap goods/services part, how does it benefit someone from France when a company from eastern Europe can undercut them and send a team to do job at a 30% discount compared to the normal price?

You see the good side of the single market without acknowledging that it has also been used to create unfair competition between the different countries due to the difference in social contributions and lower wages.

That is exactly what has happened with globalization and while there are some clear winners, we can say that a part of the middle class was sacrificed in order to reduce the costs of production of goods and services.

The same is happening now in Europe.

> Well, firstly by most standards we are. The problem is inequality and the way wealth is distributed, not the lack of it.

You cannot be serious. Many countries such as Greece, Italia, France, and now Germany are all in bad shapes. If the situation was good, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

The GDP of Greece is still 30% lower than what it was in 2008? How's that for doing well?

Also what does wealth inequality have to do with the under investment that the EU has done for the last 30 years? Has wealth inequality stifled productivity or stopped the EU from developing it's own Cloud or stopped the EU from investing the EVs?

> This is true, but none of this is the EU’s fault. It does not control the industrial policies of the member-states. And how would any of these member-states fare in an ideal timeline where the EU does not exist? Would having 27 different currencies, 27 different tariffs systems, 27 completely different tax structures with controls at each border help with developing any of this?

A currency is a tool that is linked to industrial outputs and therefore can affect the economy of a country.

When the Euro was introduced it forced Germany into a devaluation of it's currency since the euro was weaker than the Mark. That in turn made Germany into the power house of Europe whereas in France, it made goods more expensive and increased the labor costs which means that most of the industrial capacity of France left and went overseas and unemployment started rising.

The euro's problem is that it is not adapted to the countries with weaker economies who could do a devaluation if they did not have it in order to boost their exports.

Secondly, you mention 27 different tax structures which is exactly what Marco Draghi is highlighting in his report. If he is talking about it, that surely means that these problems still exist.

For the last 30 years, the EU has been sold to the people of Europe as the Messiah.

It will produce economic growth they said, it will make things better for everyone they said and so on and so forth. From my little corner of the world, we can see that these promises have not been fulfilled and far from it.

If the EU was meant to protect us, it has failed. The EU can't even help Ukraine properly. What kind of deterrent is that?

If it was meant to create economic growth, look at what is happening now, sandwiched in a trade war between the US and China with no way to respond to either one of them as we depend on China for our stuff and we depend on the US for all our tech.

America innovates, Europe regulates and China copies.

> You are cherry picking. All these except (in part) Greece are the consequences of national politics. You cannot say that the EU is to blame for every single bad outcome in the last 30 years while saying nothing about the successes. It’s just dishonest.

Ok,let me get this straight, you are saying that all the problems that these countries are having is not because of the EU and also saying that if only the UK had stayed it would have not any of these problems (low growth, low productivity and so on...).

Yet, the countries within the EU are having many problem, so how is being in the EU supposed to help with these problems?

You can't just absolve the EU from all it's failures while only claiming the successes.

I bet you that if a country is doing well within the EU, you would probably tell me that it is because of the EU. When it's doing badly, it's not the EU's fault.

Heads you win, tails I lose, right?

> The UK is doing spectacularly badly. I sincerely hope that it’s getting better but let’s not fool ourselves: I cannot name a French prime minister or president that was as bad as May, Johnson, Truss, or Sunak (I could name a couple of Camerons though, so it’s certainly not all good). Good luck to Starmer and I hope everyone will get better, but in the meantime it was the opposite of smooth and painless, and the UK is still not where it would have been.

Macron has added 1000 billion euros of debt in 7 years and his government had a shortfall of 60B euros this year. Instead of being honest he instructed his finance minister to hide the truth. Once fired, his minister decided to leave France in a hurry and moved to Switzerland in order to avoid having to answer difficult questions.

Now that the truth is out, he decided to spearhead a budget to tax the middle class even more while protecting his rich friends.

If think, if you look hard enough, you will see that he is as bad as any of the ones you mentioned in your comment.