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Comment by stanislavb | Hacker News Reader

Some insights: after the communist regime fell, the country was taken over by mafia organizations and most of the old secret services took many places in politics. i.e. there was a seeming democracy serving mostly the people playing against the law and same old and corrupt guys that used to be part of the communist party. As a result, many capable and smart people just left as soon as they could. Unfortunately, that is still the fact - the country is run by the mafia and it has the highest level of corruption in EU.

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Yes, as much as demographic decline is a big problem, the bigger one is the total and deep institutional corruption.

Its always corruption. Everywhere that's not doing well isn't doing well due to corruption. Corruption is the most important thing to fight and keep in check.

There's actually an inverse correlation between corruption and GDP, and a few studies showing that lowering of corruption directly boosted economic prosperity.

I wish more people actively brought up corruption, literally the most fundamental thing to fight.

Funny thing about corruption...It's very hard to quantify and as someone who spent couple of years living in China I would say there is no link between corruption and economic growth.

I would say that the difference is that China's elites are interested in China's economic growth. They want to see China big and powerful and for that they need to sacrifice some of that greed (and really beyond certain amount of money it's about power and prestige not about endless $$$ on your bank account).

The corrupted politicians and people are only interested in enriching themselves at the expense of everything else. For them being a client state of either Russia or the EU makes no difference because they know that to reverse the course of the country it takes more than one generation and nobody has time for that especially when you are buying your next super yacht.

How does this compare to the fall of the USSR, and the rise of oligarchs in post-communist Russia? Very similar?

Superficially similar but one of these was the disintegration of a nuclear superpower and multi-national empire. Bulgaria is a small country in the Balkans. Its population is smaller than that of NYC.

Bulgaria is in top 10 EU countries by area. It contains the entire Balkan mountains after which the Balkan peninsula is named.

Аз съм българче, oбичам наште планини зелени. It's still a small country.

Territorially, Bulgaria is close to Greece and larger than Austria, Portugal, Ireland and Czechia. It holds 16th position among 51 countries in Europe. High-income countries such as Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland also have lower population than NYC.

What is your point?

What is your point?

I thought I made it clearly but I'm happy to repeat. The post-Soviet-collapse socio-political developments in Bulgaria are (for a lot of obvious reasons) almost, but not quite, entirely unlike those of the actual Soviet collapse.

One of these obvious reasons is that Bulgaria is a small country. Especially compared to the Soviet Union. Which was a big country. In fact, the biggest one.

And that's the problem with the EU. It will happily turn a blind eye to corruption as long as the exports keep flowing.

Exports from Germany imported to poor member state you mean

Hungary: Export surplus to Germany https://oec.world/en/profile/country/hun

Bulgaria: Export surplus to Germany https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bgr

Romania: Balanced trade https://oec.world/en/profile/country/rou

Would you mind clarifying what you're referring to?

This is because of the exported feedstocks. If you go to Bulgaria (or any other Balkan country) you will see the land drown in german goods.

Is this a bad thing? We get to use the money from the export surplus to modernize other industries. It is not surprising that a poorer country will be in the agriculture business as it develops. For a positive change, see how the software industry in Sofia has been growing. It will take time to revive mid and heavy industries.

It's a bad thing if you dont take advantage of it. The problem is the Eastern European countries never did. They never stood a chance in the first place.

You need to own the value chain if you want to get richer.

I'd bet India also had an export surplus to the UK when it was a colony.

So, thank you for shedding light on the whole of the German plot. I hadn't realized that the Eastern Europe countries were admitted to the EU so the German industry could source components and raw materials without import fees.

So, OP complained about an import surplus. You complain about an export surplus.

The only two alternatives are no trade, or a perfectly balanced trade. Neither one are realistic goals.

The fact that Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania were given membership to the EU is baffling.

Fast forward to today, Liviu Dragnea is serving time for abuse of power, Bulgaria is still dealing with corruption and the Hungary government continues its assault on democracy.

It's beggar's belief why any of these nations membership has not been suspended.

Isn’t EU’s top anti corruption official Bulgarian? I don’t think she got there by being bad at her job

No. She is Romanian. As a result, Romania's GDP was going in a much better trajectory before the local politicians tried to stop her and bring the country back on the old corruption path.

The old elite fighting back was inevitable.

I am optimistic however. These things happen in a two steps forward, one step back fashion. And unfortunately for the corrupt in this country the geenie is already out of the bottle.

You'll see in the following years.

My Romanian bretheren tend to be more pessimistic. I recommend this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34890015-factfulness

Liviu Dragnea (from Romania) serving time in prison is a good example of us having a functional justice system.

While the arrangement has been very beneficial for us, let's not forget that the EU does need a market to sell inferior products at a premium and they do need our seasonal workers and our educated as well, who would otherwise flee to the US and elsewhere.

I cannot speak for other countries, but seeing the vitriol here gives me a deja vu of the anti-Romanians Brexit campaign.

You know, it was hilarious seeing the UK begging us to send them workers in this Covid crisis ;-)

I wouldn't overlook the geopolitical aspect, specifically on the russian front.

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