No country in the EU would have been better off if the EU hadn’t been formed.
The only way the EU can be described in the economically apocalyptic way you are is if you don’t consider the alternatives at all.
Consider Greece, which is the poster child of the EU economic failures.
Outside the EU Greece would have completely collapsed. The only thing that gave it some sort of leverage to get out of a long standing mess was the fact that being part of the EU still gave it some credibility with lenders which gave it time to recover to whatever degree it has.
In a nutshell, the EU had a lot of problems but the pre-EU situation would have been significantly worse.
> No country in the EU would have been better off if the EU hadn’t been formed.
EU, the economic union. Not the political union and the bureaucratic machine that tagged along.
> Outside the EU Greece would have completely collapsed. The only thing that gave it some sort of leverage to get out of a long standing mess was the fact that being part of the EU still gave it some credibility with lenders which gave it time to recover to whatever degree it has.
You give Greeks too little credit. Outside the EU, they could have devalued their currency, spurred investment from second-world countries (notably China) without answering to a preachy EU blocking them, etc. Greeks imo are some of the most hard-working people in the EU at the moment, perhaps even the most. The EU didn't give them the flexibility to adapt, so that Germany could maintain its supremacy.
No country in the EU would have been better off if the EU hadn’t been formed.
The only way the EU can be described in the economically apocalyptic way you are is if you don’t consider the alternatives at all.
Consider Greece, which is the poster child of the EU economic failures.
Outside the EU Greece would have completely collapsed. The only thing that gave it some sort of leverage to get out of a long standing mess was the fact that being part of the EU still gave it some credibility with lenders which gave it time to recover to whatever degree it has.
In a nutshell, the EU had a lot of problems but the pre-EU situation would have been significantly worse.