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Comment by thiagocesar | Hacker News Reader

At some point, the EU has to see a pattern of degradation and corruption, and start engaging actively with the people of the countries, instead of just expecting places such as Bulgaria and Romania to wake up and decide to be rich and developed out of nowhere.

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The EU has also created conditions to move the health, young workers and the educated class out of there, and into the the West, which is an existential shock to their system. It's hard to institute reform when the people most able to commit to it have been given 2x their paycheck to go elsewhere.

You are right, but I would like to point out that this very article lists multiple ways Bulgaria is already improving. It is not all doom and gloom, even if there are outstanding serious problems.

The EU knew the state of Bulgaria and Romania before inviting them to join.

The general idea was that a certain amount of nation-scale wealth transfer (e.g. via infrastructure projects, ag subsidies) and individual wealth transfer (e.g. remittances of people working abroad) would help bring the former Eastern Bloc countries up to speed, gradually remove corruption and transform towards democracy.

Let's keep it at "the idea was nice, the actual execution was... flawed".

Just out of curiosity, when you say actual execution do you mean the execution done by EU bodies or the execution of the government(s) of Bulgaria?

Both to be honest, and that's not just for Bulgaria/Romania but all former Yugoslavian and USSR countries, and even Western-allied countries such as Greece and Italy.

The EU failed to predict local government's corruption or outright destructive behavior (e.g. Visegrad blockade in refugee questions), its foundational assumption was that member states were all aligned towards one common goal and not behave actively destructive. Local governments failed to uphold their values and more often than not saw the EU as a cash cow waiting to be exploited.

In a union, how can poor exist without rich, how can rich exist without poor?

See, people will leave their country for better country if there is opportunity to do so which is plenty in EU when you compare the average quality of life of a German Vs Bulgarian

If Bulgaria is losing its people, maybe it's the intended effect of the free movement of labor?

Romania GDP per capita grew more that 6 times in the last 30 years. Talk about being clueless:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...

Still on the subject of Romania, no, it's not the mythical EU funds that fuel this growth, because the funds are tiny compared to the size of the economy and 2/3 end up not being spent at all because extremely strict anti-corruption measures that make it a massive pain in the ass to try and access EU funds. Government debt is at 35% of GDP, growth rate is constantly among best 3 in EU, constantly over 5%, unemployment under 4%, wages grow between 5-7% annually, inflation is under 3%, criminality is way lower than the West etc. Is that bad? And I think Romania could do even better if not for EU's idiotic trade policy and regulation bullshit.

Hi, I'm a Romanian.

It may not be EU's funds that fuel our growth (although they help), however not sure if you're aware but the growth you're talking of happened after we entered EU, not before.

Before EU we were at the same level as Moldova. Our growth is perfectly correlated with our EU membership. If you want to see what would have happened without EU, look at Moldova.

And it's easy to see why. In spite of regulations, compared to the 90s we have a market to sell our products to. We no longer build tractors that nobody wants. And we exported our poverty, the poor and uneducated becoming seasonal workers, that no longer need a passport and visa to travel and that then send money home.

Also the anti-corruption policies you mentioned have been fueled by EU membership too, things moving under foreign pressure. Speaking of which it's not actually anti-corruption measures that prevent us from accessing EU's funds but our government's incompetence.

We disagree. I think Romania would be the shithole that it was in the 90s if it wasn't for EU and its "trade policy and regulation bullshit". The arrangement was and continues to be mutually beneficial.

Romanian too.

> If you want to see what would have happened without EU, look at Moldova.

Heck - if you want to see what would have happened without EU, look all around: Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia. Serbia and Ukraine were miles ahead of us until we joined the EU.

Sure, I mentioned Moldova due to very similar geopolitical situation, culture and ethnicity. They even speak the same language.

I am getting impression that you are implying that living in Serbia is terrible, or at least worse than living in Romania.

I live in Belgrade and I like it here. I visited Bucharest 2 years ago for EuroBSDcon and I liked it as well. Belgrade hosted EuroBSDcon 2 years earlier. I haven't noticed much difference between developed and historical parts of Belgrade and Bucharest. I noticed Bucharest's decayed parts are in much worse state than Belgrade's.

Belgrade is not representative of all of Serbia and you should get out into the provinces. As someone who spends pretty much each summer cycling in Romania and Serbia, I agree with the OP: in so much of Serbia south of Belgrade, the tertiary roads (which were the pride of Yugoslavia) are often no longer maintained and municipal buildings are decaying. In Romania, conversely, a lot of provincial roads have been upgraded and municipal infrastructure renovated thanks to EU funds.

I got the impression, not that Serbia was terrible, but that the advantage Serbia has over Bulgaria is much less marked than it was earlier.

I don't know your region at all, but for instance mid 80's Računari was a regular magazine, while all I can find for the same period in Bulgaria is an Isotimpex calendar:

https://i.etsystatic.com/6486428/r/il/2fbacd/2104028442/il_1...

(of course, ghits are a lousy way of judging, but since we have many EE voices in this thread I figure being wrong on the internet is a good way to get better information.)

I generally agree. Back in 80's, Romanian and Bulgarian construction workers lined up near "Park of Vuk" in Belgrade in hope to get daily construction site gig for cash. They aren't there since 90's when shit hit the fan.

Best wine I ever bought in supermarket was in Bucharest, not Bordeaux. Tastiest dinner I ever had in a restourant was in Sofia, not Paris. Best nightclubbing in Belgrade, not Berlin.

Yeah, I'm hardcore Balkanian :)

Belgrade is pretty nice man; I didn't mean to imply Serbia is terrible - just that it has fallen behind. It used to be that Serbia was the neighbour we looked up to; nowadays... it just doesn't seem better anymore.

Also - Bucharest is terrible, compared with its potential, because we've had extremely shitty mayors. But if things change now (and it's not out of the question!), it can really take off. The GDP of the region is already way higher than Belgrade, I believe (but, the natural setting is way worse, that much is true).

Growth happened before EU accession in 2007 and it was faster and more robust as it's pretty obvious from the graph I linked. What triggered our economic expansion was reforms that began when we almost defaulted, around the time the first non-Communist government (Democratic Convention in 1996) took power. We stopped printing money to cover huge budget deficits and got rid of hyperinflation. We privatized, simplified and decreased taxation, opened the country to foreign investment, stopped in large part protectionist measures, massively deregulated the economy etc. From a closed economic model inspired by North Korea, we now have an economy that's more free than most of Europe, including our regional competitors like Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Russia or Turkey. UE big government career bureaucrats that can't even "fix" their own failing countries, had nothing to teach us and have no merit in what we have achieved.

Great point! I'd generalize this and say you have to do this with any minority group that is "below" some desired level (within a country, community, etc.). And concretely, you need to invest in access to money and high quality education first.

You’re both right. You have to empower the disenfranchised through active engagement and investment, but also use financial repercussions against those who would continue to subjugate another class. Without both, success is much more difficult.

Fight corruption with a financial boot. I imagine Bulgaria needs the EU more than the EU needs Bulgaria. This requires more spine in Brussels though.

The non-elite in Bulgaria need access to the capital and economic opportunities of the EU; the Bulgarian elite already have access.

Also, economic sanctions inevitably hurt the poor more than the rich; this is the case in Venezuela, Iran, and many other countries across the world

Not going to happen, especially in this climate with sovereignty and nationalism demands in rise.

In EU, countries preserve most of their sovereignty and all EU can do is cutting funds and no country will give up sovereignty to enable EU interfere with domestic matters.

Bulgaria is like that because Bulgarians like it this way, EU cannot enforce anything because it doesn't have the authority to make Bulgaria being governed like Germany or Netherlands.

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