Re:Brain Drain Within the EU?
by laurencerowe on Saturday September 22, 2018 @08:50PM
(#18048801)
Those figures do not show massive inter-regional financing. All but 2 countries have net EU expenditures of +/- 250 Euro per person. Per capita spending by the EU is 215 Euro per person compared to federal government spending of $9,961 per person in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_...
The EU budget is 1% of GDP while the US federal budget is 20% GDP, 60% of which goes on social security / medicare / safety net programs. US federal spending acts as a huge inter-regional stabilizer.
Regional transfers must significantly increase within the Eurozone if the Euro is to avoid breaking up or immiserating huge numbers of citizens.
As a matter of fact, Germany and the other EU countries do massively finance the poorer EU countries (per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_statistics#EU_b...).
Problem is corruption: EU funds too often get shunted sideways (e.g. for Hungary, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/12/how-hungarian-...).