News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Wealthy EU states treat Eastern Europe as a colony.

Re:Wealthy EU states treat Eastern Europe as a colony by mmarq on Sunday September 05, 2021 @09:31AM (#28424225)
> In the East, meanwhile, the elites are shamed to silence, for they’re complicit in a population collapse of wartime scale. Croatia has lost almost a quarter of its people (an existential meltdown, one premier dared to moan). Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic three of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have seen a fifth of workers go. Poland has lost over a tenth.

Are we saying that, say, the Polish state owns the Poles and if the latter go abroad they are stolen goods?

The rest of the article seems to assume that Poland would be better off outside of the German value chain, which borders insanity.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Wealthy EU states treat Eastern Europe as a colony by mensetmanusman on Sunday September 05, 2021 @10:13AM (#28424490)
Not own, but since they invested billions into education that has seen a net negative return, there is reason to fret a downward spiral unless those that benefit rebalance the load.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Wealthy EU states treat Eastern Europe as a colony by mmarq on Sunday September 05, 2021 @10:42AM (#28424680)
Yes, the local political class and elites should take responsibility and act so that people stop expatriating, if that’s really what they want. What the article suggests is that we blame the foreigner, ie the German and the Briton, because they allow educated Poles and Italians to earn a decent salary.

Besides, in Poland we are starting to see a reversal, as the country keeps growing and becoming richer, net migration has become positive. So one may argue that Western Europe, while benefiting from the Polish workforce it imported, also acted as a relief valve for Polish unemployment, while the country was catching up with the west.

[ Parent | on HN ]