EDIT: I am asking because I seriously want to know. I haven’t made up my mind yet what to think about the whole thing. I am not familiar with successful EU initiatives. I’m open in believing this can work if there were successful examples in the past.
The EU Cohesion Fund is one. Since 2007, ~133 billion € got invested in the poorer countries of the EU to improve trans-european traffic infrastructure (TEN, aka road, rail, waterways) and environmental projects (e.g. villages hooked up to proper sewage pipes with treatment plants at the end, instead of dumping sewage to the groundwater / into rivers and seas).
I've visited several small towns in Romania, and all plumbing was in good order. It's not like a country stuck in 15th century. Are you talking about 'villages' of like 5 people?
Let’s assume that project was for the poorest 10% of the EU. That would be 44 million people. €133 billion divided by 44 million is about €3000 per inhabitant.
I don’t think one can expect such an amount to bring roads, rails, bridges, and sewage treatment systems up to standards of the richest parts of the EU.
See https://netzpolitik.org/2018/danke-helmut-kohl-kabelfernsehe...
I'm not sure if this will work, but I do think that something needs to be done by _someone_, even if not Europe. TSMC having a global near-monopoly on high-end fab is obviously not long-term viable. That's a bad situation for _everyone_.