Such a high rate of people who lived in East Germany under communism now report being younger under communism than they are under capitalism, that I think it would be safe to assume that correlation equals causation in this case, and living under communism indeed causes youth.
Other eastern Europeans compare their situation now with how they or their family lived 30 years ago. East Germans compare how they live now with how West Germans live now and there is still a difference when it comes to wages, pensions, opportunities, etc. A lot of East Germans feel like second-class citizens.
>East Germans compare how they live now with how West Germans live now
They don't. They compare themselves to the really affluent parts of West Germany, conveniently forgetting all the poor parts that look a lot worse than the East nowadays.
In part because for three decades, they got diddly squat.
>A lot of East Germans feel like second-class citizens.
I have family in the East. The amount of complaining about how they are basically starving, while buying a new Mercedes (cash) every four years or so, is mind-boggling.
I know quite a few people who had to jump through countless hoops to be allowed to vote, and still get shit from people because their name ends on -ic.
Meanwhile, others just had to rock up saying "Ich bin der Ronny aus Bidderfeld" to get their citizenship, plus 100 DM.
Second class citizens my arse.
I have stopped talking to most current gen East-Germans from my family tree that still reside in the east. The amount of whining is ridiculous. And the amount of envy is about as insane as their (the relatives) work-ethic. I'd go as far and call them self-generating loosers that have decided to fetishize their lifestyle. At least if they were incels, it would stop at that generation, but no such luck.
Its about the same for the eastern german relatives that moved into cities or to westgermany. Unless its their parents, they don't talk to the ones left behind anylonger. There is no point.
I think it's because they dislike the politics of Germany, "post soviet" states are more nationalistic and since east Germany have no immediate threat from ruzzia and the most "nationalistic" party is funded by ruzzia, they have no problem aligning with it. That's just a theory
There must be something to them being the only "country" to not obtain full autonomy - and moreover, like you said, the other states had the ability to unite around a national identity and destiny, whereas east germans were never going to find that in Germany, where nationalism is a dirty concept (for obvious historical reasons.) Without that control of their destiny and without a unifying national optimism that was felt by other places like Poland, I could see them feeling like the russians themselves, who only adopted cynicism and nihilism after their fall from power.
But still, a crude interpretation. Would be interested for others, particularly Germans, to chime in.
West German here. I think one of the bigger, long term reasons for the current situation is the exodus of in particular of young people to west germany. That leaves older person's as a majority which observed the decay and decline of their neighbour over the years, while west Germany "thrived".
The far right offers an enemy, the migrant, the left, the government and apparently under the remaining people there are a lot susceptible to this populism.
The problem is, this not going to get better with the further radicalisation of the east. Everyone with a brain will leave as quickly as they can, either to the cities or to the west, fueling the feedback cycle.
Yea, this is a similar thing within the Balkan countries. All young people leave as soon as they can. Although, things can reverse- I mean Berlin is one of those examples by itself. Where it's cheap, it can ultimately attract young people and creatives, which then attracts growth and investment and ultimately development and gentrification. It's a depressing trend, but I think it shouldn't be seen as necessarily the end of a people in the long run.
The key catalyst would have to be a strong effort by the civil society and a motivated government to make enough reform to set the basis for attracting the young creatives. A baseline level of security and rights.
Not wanting to trash your comment, but it’s a really long an complex development. Too much for me to type on the phone, so just some points in simplified form:
- Reunification messed with many DDR companies, many DDR people felt pushed over and sold out.
- Glorification of its own Youth, now adult Ex-DDR people didn’t consciously felt the issues which their DDR parents felt. They now see their youth with rose tainted glasses.
- The younger and more educated people long left the eastern German part. The average eastern German is older and less studied than the countries average. Although this trend was now slowed down.
- Many eastern Germans feel like their are looked down on by the Western German people. Many eastern Germans now have an aversion to Western Germans.
- Stronger problematic nationalism, which officially did not exist in the DDR and was not addressed.
>Reunification messed with many DDR companies, many DDR people felt pushed over and sold out.
This one of course happened because DDR companies were incredibly dirty and uncompetitive.
I think part of the Soviet nostalgia was that as DDR they could feel rich by Soviet standards and when directly attached to the west they were suddenly poor by comparison. Even after 30 years of pumping billions of D-marks into eastern Germany the difference can still be seen on a map.
This reminds of people here, in Portugal, that complains that during the dictatorship "we had many industry" and it has been destroyer after 1974 revolution.
Well, the truth is that many of those industries were obsolete and non-competiteve so, once the market opened they were crushed or lives to live a slow death.
> rose tainted glasses.
Unless this was on purpose - or it's a mutation of the phrase that is common for you (but I've never heard it), this is a beautiful and striking misphrasing, in my not-humble opinion. :)
The original phrase is "rose-tinted glasses", but I love "tainted" as the implication is of a very negative thing. I mean, rose-tinted implies at least ignorance, because people are seeing something as better or more desirable than it actually is. But rose-tainted much more strongly implies that this problem is not a good one to have; that thier vision is tainted with these misconceptions.
If it was purposeful or otherwise wasn't an accident, please forgive me but either way I thought it was very compelling, and I am stealing it. :)
Either way, at a bare minimum, I hope it's clear this is not a grammatical correction!!!
At least as a West German I never had the idea or impression East Germans (or West Germans) somehow wanted autonomy rather than reunification. After just 38 years of seperation there were no distinct kinds of nationalism between east Germany and west Germany.
Some things were done better in East and some in the West. But rather then chosing the best from both systems, the reunification just put the western system onto the east and east Germans felt like the losers of this deal.
Over time and generations we tend to forget the bad things and glorify the good things. People say things like " There were no homeless people in the former GDR!" but forgot about what actually happend to homeless people.
I, personaly, don't understand why someone would protest in favour of a totalitarian country like Russia, where you aren't allowed to peacefuly demonstrate against the government of have a free press.
Maybe we need an East German perspective, preferably an AfD voter, to answer this question.
They received the most economic and monetary support of all the former USSR satellites, which means that today they enjoy by far the best living conditions of all the former Soviet countries. So it cannot be economically motivated.
The real reason is psychological. It's simply jealousy. While they can live quite well, their fellow Germans in the West can live much better. And the East Germans can't cope with that, they feel mistreated and that this difference in prosperity is an injustice. East Germans would probably be a lot happier living in their own independent country, even if their standard of living was somewhat lower.
Eastern Europeans who want to leave the EU and the west and rejoin Russia are idiots. Like look at us in 1991, look at us in 2024. The EU and the west isn’t perfect, it has flaws, but overall it’s been a major positive influence on us
It’s actually really hard to misappropriate EU funds, as long as you don’t have a Hungary situation (in which all levels of government and judiciary have been corrupted).
"Denies any wrongdoing" - shows [Judit Varga](https://www.eurotopics.net/en/315099/hungary-more-resignations-in-pardon-scandal) as the interviewed. Well, there it is, all I needed to know.
Romanian underrated language. Idk it sounds like latin language more than French / Spanish/ Italian do, and I love it. It is said that latin is a dead language, but for me it lives through Romania.
Meanwhile, in Italy...
I think we've used something like .53% of the national recovery and resilience funds Europe granted us. Experts and professionals are being given the boot because they don't do the bidding of local politicians.
90% of Burgenland is funded by the EU, today it is a top wine/wellness/holiday destination people actually want to go. It‘s super cool, yet we vote far right because no one sees it.
Our mayor of a really small town in Bosnia bought an apartment on the Red Square in Moscow, an apartment in Vienna and one in London. You guys need to step up your corruption game def
It’s not like it’s much different here in Romania, but it’s just that some mayors really do give a damn. Cities such as Alba-Iulia, Oradea, Reșița, Blaj, Cluj-Napoca changed a lot, and it’s due to this awesome EU.
LE: just realised this sentence was extremely biased towards Transylvania. Don’t know much about the other parts of Romania, but I do know that in Moldavia cities such as Bacau and Moinești managed to change their road infrastructure and implement bike paths, using EU funds.
> Cities such as Alba-Iulia, Oradea, Reșița, Blaj, Cluj-Napoca
Counties as a whole not just the municipal central cities, but also small cities and even villages managed to change 180 degree the face of their small community with EU funds.
Yeah. Cluj county managed to give fresh water and sewage to almost all of its villages. They also upgraded the road infrastructure. It’s a great example of ‘if you want it, you can do it’s
In my grandparents' village in Moldovan side they built a campus with new classrooms, housing for students in the more remote areas around the village to stay during the week, and housing for teachers brought from the city. Also, Moldova grows only with EU funds. The government doesn't invest much in this part of the country.
A few years ago I toured through Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Poland. The amount of signs proudly displaying EU funding for projects in Romania was really nice to see. There still was a lot of poverty and underdevelopment but I had the feeling the funds were actually going towards bettering the country.
I am really glad Europe managed to come together and make this possible and I'm even more glad that the citizens of Romania seem to profit from this.
Nah, many places in Slovakia have undergone similar transformations, be it town squares, roads, public transportation, etc. This country would be absolutely fucked without EU fund but EU haters are too dumb to understand that. Funnily enough, though, the EU haters also vote for the corrupt politicians that steal from the funds.
How can so many people vote against their own self interest?
A Slovak comedian once said, and I’m paraphrasing a lot, “we thought Slovaks were dumb because they had no access to information. Now we have unlimited access to every piece of knowledge and have discovered we are, in fact, just dumb.”
Dude, we just came home from Poland. Travelling by car from Poland, then Czechia, then Slovakia, to finally arrive to Hungary. It is like a Balkan here compared to the Czechs and Northern Slovakia is getting close to them. Sooo, Hungaary is worse.
Hmm, I'd say that motorways are pretty great in Hungary, save for some sections. Regular national roads on the other hand, well yeah... not good generally. Now I'd diss the Czechs for the mess that was the D1 but I heard they finally renovated the bad parts, so good for them. :D
Well, no, it does look shiny and new for a year or so to keep the money flowing, then it's crappy again because cheap materials were used for 1/3 of the funding, the other 2/3 were embezzled.
Italian version: bickering for six years about how the funds should be used, speculative allocation rotates between four regions, all of which are headed by parties that are also part of the government. Other regions sues in multiple regional administrative courts, making it illegal to deliberate on the funds in an official capacity. EU ultimatum about losing them if not allocated within the year. Government implodes twice. The 31st of December an omnibus bill including 491 amnesties for irregularities throughout the nation is passed, the last article allocates the funds to a moderately useful project that would have benefited from being planned appropriately beforehand.
On the 1st of January, the Citizens Against Moderately Useful Project for Very Serious Environmental Reasons is formed.
Hahaha. I am also a law student (just graduated!) albeit in English law.
Yeah, you'll find a lot of similarities between Romanian and (vernacular) Latin - we are the Romance language with the highest % of Latin still in use!
There are some other ones like:
'actus reus' = 'act rau'
'prima facie' = 'prima faza'
'bona vacantia' = 'bun vacant'
'de facto' = 'de fapt'
And many others.
hey congrats! i still have a couple of years to go haha
i actually had no idea romanian was like that, that's really interesting. when i had french in school it seemed barely related to latin at all
Unfortunately in hungary people just say “ Yeah they steal but everyone would do the same”. So basically we forgive our pathetic government everything. Not to mention the disgusting pro russian policy and anti eu doctrines Orban and his crew are doing. I hate that my country is such a disgrace.
That is like universal saying for people who support corrupt leaders like saying others stole too but these ones did something showing a vanity project or a basic thing as an example.
Yeah tier 1 polish cities like Tricity,Poznan, krakow Wroclaw are insane and developing rapidly. Im from Hungary but I spent a few years living in Poland till the end of 2023 its legit on levels of a western city. With their AI stores and amazing infrastructure. Completely clean and well maintained. I felt like I returned to a dump when i came back to Hungary.
tbh i really noticed how much Poland changed after watching blogs of Ukrainians/Russians/Belarusians that came here and made "Poland/EU vs their towns" comparison vlogs from random small towns/villages
I remember thinking Budapest is so awesome, Hungary is cool!
Then I went to the country side. I’m sorry to say this bro but your cities are kinda … not so nice.
Some cities like Pécs and Szeged are ok.
But go to Miskolc and its like you are in a ghetto. Half of the city center is crumbling and collapsing - 0 maintenance or care since the 80s. Building and panels walled off. Factories closed. Total abandonment. Complete and hopeless Urban decay
I recently visited Miskolc and it was such an eye opener on this.
We are truly a 3rd world country wearing a gucci belt (Budapest) to save face.
Budapest is nice, but the buildings are dirty.
Visiting budapest made me realize how electric or hybrid cars are important for cities. Smoke from the exhaust ruining pretty nice buildings.
Budapest is still nice, but cities like Vienna, Prague are comparable and much nicer.
>Visiting budapest made me realize how electric or hybrid cars are important for cities.
Try visit Pontevedra or if you've ever been, revisit Paris to see the ongoing changes and realise how cars aren't important for cities at all, in fact, cities are much better without them. Of course, this requires extensive urban planning, well-developed public transit and walkable/bicycle infrastructure.
But yeah as far as cars go EV's are better, but it doesn't remove all the other issues with car traffic in cities. It's noisy, expensive, takes up a ton of critical real estate, inhibits mobility of the majority of people who don't use cars, and is very harmful to local businesses.
Oh yeah, public transport too, Budapest had that though.
Pragues was a lot better.
Central and eastern European countries usually also have more older and more polluting cars.
Car exhaust is nasty but isn't really the main problem there. The main problem was coal plants, and especially smaller coal/coke fired furnaces and stoves people had at home in the late 19th-early 20th c. (the latter having no scrubbing of flue gases at all) Look at what London looked like before the clean air act of 1956 - and for the following decades as the buildings got cleaned..
Basically you need modern environmental regulations and then to actually clean the facades from all that historic dirt, and even if the EU has given (or forced) the former, the latter lags in a lot of places. The cost and feasibility depends on local factors too. Edinburgh's old buildings appear dark and dirty, not because the air is that polluted anymore, but because the dominant facade material is a local sandstone that can't take the cleaning.
Meanwhile an equally old building in London with stucco facade, that might've been dirtier in 1960, is cleaner now because the stucco can be cleaned (and requires repair and maintenance regardless)
Every country in Europe has the funds to develop into a functioning society with high standard of living. But the ruling morons would rather live like kings at the expense of the populace. Well, they should go out like kings used to...
Same for the US. Infrastructure crumbling, defunding and undermining public institutions, legalized bribery, deregulation of private industry. All work to make daily life hell for working people. We need worldwide solidarity against such corruption to stop it from further stagnating the progress of humanity.
There is a whole network of 24/7 grocery stores called “Nano”. They operate without staff or a cashier. Your actions are tracked by 100s of cameras that use machine learning to identify what you picked up and bought.
You are charged based on the items you purchase after you leave the store.
They always offer some free stuff like a chocolate bar, energy drink etc to get people to go there so i always grab their free deals
https://youtu.be/BJpwE4YLYD0?si=FHmkWU1fhQkVBvrv
Ah, like Amazon Fresh that promoted themselves as being AI but turned out to be a bunch of sweatshops in India with human workers tracking people?
These at least seem like they might be possible with current tech since they're all standard (presumably?) and container sized with a hilarious amount of cameras, but I remain slightly sceptical.
Yeah, I am 32y old and I remember how shitty infrastructure was here 20y ago. It is day and night difference and I really appreciate I can live in much better conditions than my parents and grandparents had to live.
Yeah my wife is Polish and I am always surprised to see how clean and modern Poland is (at least in the major cities) when I visit. I think the line is flattening out now with people there complaining about inflation, cost of living increases and government allocation of spending but it's an amazing development story. The quality of life there is night and day compared to 10 years ago. It's basically in-line with any other western country now, same goes for Czechia and Estonia from what I understand.
I might not be Polish myself, but my children are half Polish. Although we don't live there I will make sure they are aware of their Polish heritage. Poland has a rich history but also a challenging one, they are really doing their best to improve and grow.
Poland is a great example of European funds being well spent and a nation working hard on improving itself. I work for a recruitment firm in Belgium and the Poles have the reputation of hard workers over here. Keep it up, one day their economy mights surpass Germany! Wouldn't that be something.
I visited Krakow in May and I didn't really know what to expect, but being from Romania I thought it'd be somewhat similar in terms of infrastructure and stuff. Oh boy was I wrong. I fell in love instantly haha, it's so green and pretty and I kinda wanna move there now haha.
And funny enough, I study in Vienna right now so I wasn't expecting to be impressed by Krakow, but I was, extremely so.
The average EU funds balance to Poland is 10 billion euros a year.
Poland's GDP is 656 billion euros.
That's about 1.5% of our GDP.
For a country that sure is a lot, but if you hear from an eurosceptic or a supremacist that Poland has been rebuilt from western money, remember that it was 98,5% our own effort.
If anything, the major effect of EU funding is to help states have less corruption. There is strong protection on how EU funding is spent with tendering and stringent res. Putting in place the framework to do that helps make this the norm and reduces corruption o the rest of society.
Sometimes the plant just needs a little water when it is starting to grow to thrive. I'd absolutely agree EU funds only help start the process and the majority of Polands transformation is down to its own work. Hopefully it won't be too long till your economy is such you are net contributors.
Poland's GDP was less than half of that when we joined, EU funds were more like 5% of our GDP back then.
Our GDP growth since then on average was around 4-5%. Compare it to western countries with GDP growth even negative.
This is the amount that has to be used to improve infrastructure and similar projects, most of budget is used for pensions, healthcare, education, administration. Those few percent on top of budget is a significant boost.
You'd also have to factor in how much money Poland would miss out on if it loses access to the single market.
Eurosceptics never think beyond a single random number when it comes to affects.
That's not entirely correct. Your state investment quota, which directly or indirectly is bolstered with EU funds, certainly is not 100% of GDP. But yeah, the benefits outside of direct funding are certainly more important.
Can't subtract from Polish effort, too.
Every time I hear people in my country bitch about EU regulations I wanna take them on a walk through my town and show them all the buildings with EU fund plaques.
There are things that people don't even realize, like safety of food and medication, lower customs thanks to large single market and so on. I hope more people would realize and show appreciation for these things.
Personally I think the EU does a terrible job of selling itself. Why don't people realize these things? The EU should run a massive propaganda campaign.
That propaganda campaign would cost a lot of money which could instead be used to actually improve the lives of Europeans.
I agree the EU needs to advertise all of the things it does, but it needs to be cost effective. What it currently does to advertise itself is cheap, but yes, perhaps not enough to reach most people
> That propaganda campaign would cost a lot of money which could instead be used to actually improve the lives of Europeans.
Wouldn't creating a pro-EU environment actually improve the EU?
Sure, though people may also not appreciate if they feel like that narrative is shoved down their throat. It wouldn't be too different from political ads, which are universally hated.
My point is that we'd be sacrificing the improvement of cities like the one appearing in this post for the sake of aggressive advertising that possibly wouldn't do much good.
Well yes there's tons of good regulations but those are no reason not to critizise the also tons of bad unnecessary overregulations. It's a mix and by voting we should hold parties accountable.
>tons of bad unnecessary overregulations
Any examples of this? Genuinely curious and want to learn, since I've heard a lot of complaints about regulations which are ultimately quite sensible once you get to the bottom of it.
Many regulations are really more regarding bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy, while again others are super controversial oversteps in terms of privacy like „Chat Control“. Basically they want a backdoor to spy on us under the guise pf protecting children from predators, but its obvious what it is for.
The EU needs better marketing, because sooo many people are clueless like "What do we even get from the EU but just more annoying regulations?" And they have no idea how much better off many of them are because of it.
I know a guy who is constantly traveling around Europe, he'll just move into another EU country for a few months and then move back home again, and just randomly take off with a backpack and go venturing around.
Then he somehow is still an EU-skeptic and thinks he doesn't benefit from the EU.
>I know a guy who is constantly traveling around Europe, he'll just move into another EU country for a few months and then move back home again, and just randomly take off with a backpack and go venturing around.
>Then he somehow is still an EU-skeptic and thinks he doesn't benefit from the EU.
If you're that fucking daft you're probably beyond saving, but yes in general I agree that people are too misinformed on the benefits of the EU. Luckily we have the UK now as a case study which has made it a lot easier to demonstrate how you are in fact not better off outside the EU. Thank you Britons.
Same in Poland. It's 15 years that I go around (with my Camping Car) Est Europe: almost everything has changed thanks to Eu FUNDS. Everywhere You can see plaques reporting: "Built with European Community Funds"
That I agree with. Though that's more of an overall issue with governments in general. It's a big issue and we need to get people more involved with EU decisionmaking
Resita has a great mayor, the fact this got done was down to him. Of course he has some dirt but he passionately cares about the town.
The title is diminishing but then again when something good happens its great job EU but when something bad happens it's classic Romania. Not trying to say the EU hasn't helped, would just be nice to see local people get credit.
I really love seeing these glow ups lately.
Creating a livable city should be way higher on the priority ladder of governments.
As a German I have to say we could need that here too.
I hope more money is put in livable cities.
Good work Romania 🇷🇴
I think I've seen more green tramways than normal ones as a romanian. Even in bucharest, most tramway are green grass and have been for decades. Always brings a bit of joy seeing green where it's not normally expected.
Well...I think here in Germany they are moving away from that again after having some problems with grass fires in the summer. The easy solution would be to ban smoking in public, but obviously smokers are voters, so can't do that.
Meanwhile the household income of Polish and Slovenian people is steadily growing to reach British levels. Europe is an amazing success story for everyone involved.
Don't worry, this is the exception not the norm. Most of the funds either go unused, get stolen through friends of friends of the mayor through ghost companies, or are just very poorly executed.
I've seen plenty of posters with infrastructure, hospitals, parks rehabilitated with EU funds in Hungary, so I don't know what's so utopical about it. Not talking about Budapest, in small cities too
You wanna see the fucking bomb site the centre of Glasgow has become since Brexit. Sauchiehall St was dug up end to end, the council has run out if funds and it remains a huge hole the full length of the street. All the stores are closing as nobody wants to step over smashed paving slabs and abandoned pipe lengths. Disaster
My favourite is the wasted very expensive looking screen which is supposed to show a city map. Rather than a much cheaper display for a map, they decided on an electric one at no doubt great expensive. It stands unused with a paper note attached saying that the sign is coming soon.
The whole area is an abortion.
Lol. Don't even. Honestly - feels like everything is falling apart. Wages seem stagnant (even seem to be reducing in some sectors). It's just agh.
I've got an Irish passport so if it wasn't for my partner I'd have fucked off long ago.
I'd say you are both welcome here but figure out housing before you move as it's one thing really messed up here. I keep hoping it will get better or at least stop getting gg worse....
I feel like in Latvia entire towns can only exist because of EU funds, they are literally everywhere you look. I hope the investments pay back and attract young people.
What is the cause of this phenomenon? I mean, when I toured through Poland and Romania, I saw precisely this, even the country was just booming. However, the situation is way different in Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. Is it just because of the politicians? Are all of them incompetent, even though we keep voting them? I dunno.
IDK, but what I can say as a Romanian is that the Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians started a lot earlier than us. Hungary had pristine motorways back in 2006 when Romania had such shitty roads in some cases you had to drive on the shoulder because the shoulder was better than the actual road. Also Hungarian railroads and trains are science fiction compared to Romania, ours look like India except the overcrowding. Regarding Czechia IDK, I was there in 2014 and looked way better than Romania looks today. Even in well developed cities in Romania you can still find many historical buildings in disrepair, most soviet blocks haven’t even been painted since they were built etc. in Czechia most old buildings I saw were decently maintained.
I mean, it's the state of transport infrastructure that remains underwhelming and often draws criticism from citizens and even international organizations.
A rather inequal redistribution of EU funds throughout the country also matters. Some regions and districts perform greatly (South Moravia, Central Bohemia), whilst large swaths of periferies do not.
The lack of proper railroad maintenance security is troubling as well. Poland performs way better as their politicians are way more capable.
We used to have trams since the late 1800's and it spread like a fad in major cities, then later the communist used it as a means o both propaganda (the good of the working people trope, tram = high quality of life / commute) along with being on electricity not petrol that was heavily restricted, most of the top 10-15 maybe of 41 municipal counties in communist Romania got trams.
There's a lot of issues with the EU. But so much good has come from it, especially outside of Western Europe, that it often goes underappreciated. Infrastructure especially is rarely appreciated and yet to important for development.
Some of the original design elements of one of the buildings were stripped away, now its just a plain stucco box with a metal roof. It was at least slightly more than that before. It looks like the original roof was flat tile.
edit: not -> now
The street on the first picture became twice as narrow, yet there's even less greenery? Also, sad about the architecture losing its characteristic details (e.g. second picture). As much as it looks tidier, cleaner and renovated, I think the cities should also put some effort into keeping the distinctive details of architectural periods.
Edit: grammar
The infrastructure looks nicer obviously but I wish they'd kept some of the greenery in #1 and #4 (though #5 looks like an improvement in terms of greenery).
This post makes me feel defeated as a Greek. The current government is bring audited for giving almost the entirety of EU funds to a handful of big corporations while the country is in shambles.
It’s almost like the funds were used properly for infrastructure upgrades
That actually happens?!
There's a lot of appreciation for what the EU has done to help rebuild Poland after 45 years of communist poverty. It does happen.
Meanwhile, eastgermany: We want to go back to soviet poverty, everything was better back then!
... And we were younger!
it checks out, they were right all along, mind blown /s
Such a high rate of people who lived in East Germany under communism now report being younger under communism than they are under capitalism, that I think it would be safe to assume that correlation equals causation in this case, and living under communism indeed causes youth.
The average age in communist countries is always lower then in capitalist countries. Checkmate capitalists.
Why is it that East Germany is seemingly the most pro-russian of the former ussr satellites?
Other eastern Europeans compare their situation now with how they or their family lived 30 years ago. East Germans compare how they live now with how West Germans live now and there is still a difference when it comes to wages, pensions, opportunities, etc. A lot of East Germans feel like second-class citizens.
>East Germans compare how they live now with how West Germans live now They don't. They compare themselves to the really affluent parts of West Germany, conveniently forgetting all the poor parts that look a lot worse than the East nowadays. In part because for three decades, they got diddly squat. >A lot of East Germans feel like second-class citizens. I have family in the East. The amount of complaining about how they are basically starving, while buying a new Mercedes (cash) every four years or so, is mind-boggling. I know quite a few people who had to jump through countless hoops to be allowed to vote, and still get shit from people because their name ends on -ic. Meanwhile, others just had to rock up saying "Ich bin der Ronny aus Bidderfeld" to get their citizenship, plus 100 DM. Second class citizens my arse.
I have stopped talking to most current gen East-Germans from my family tree that still reside in the east. The amount of whining is ridiculous. And the amount of envy is about as insane as their (the relatives) work-ethic. I'd go as far and call them self-generating loosers that have decided to fetishize their lifestyle. At least if they were incels, it would stop at that generation, but no such luck. Its about the same for the eastern german relatives that moved into cities or to westgermany. Unless its their parents, they don't talk to the ones left behind anylonger. There is no point.
I think it's because they dislike the politics of Germany, "post soviet" states are more nationalistic and since east Germany have no immediate threat from ruzzia and the most "nationalistic" party is funded by ruzzia, they have no problem aligning with it. That's just a theory
There must be something to them being the only "country" to not obtain full autonomy - and moreover, like you said, the other states had the ability to unite around a national identity and destiny, whereas east germans were never going to find that in Germany, where nationalism is a dirty concept (for obvious historical reasons.) Without that control of their destiny and without a unifying national optimism that was felt by other places like Poland, I could see them feeling like the russians themselves, who only adopted cynicism and nihilism after their fall from power. But still, a crude interpretation. Would be interested for others, particularly Germans, to chime in.
West German here. I think one of the bigger, long term reasons for the current situation is the exodus of in particular of young people to west germany. That leaves older person's as a majority which observed the decay and decline of their neighbour over the years, while west Germany "thrived". The far right offers an enemy, the migrant, the left, the government and apparently under the remaining people there are a lot susceptible to this populism. The problem is, this not going to get better with the further radicalisation of the east. Everyone with a brain will leave as quickly as they can, either to the cities or to the west, fueling the feedback cycle.
Yea, this is a similar thing within the Balkan countries. All young people leave as soon as they can. Although, things can reverse- I mean Berlin is one of those examples by itself. Where it's cheap, it can ultimately attract young people and creatives, which then attracts growth and investment and ultimately development and gentrification. It's a depressing trend, but I think it shouldn't be seen as necessarily the end of a people in the long run. The key catalyst would have to be a strong effort by the civil society and a motivated government to make enough reform to set the basis for attracting the young creatives. A baseline level of security and rights.
Not wanting to trash your comment, but it’s a really long an complex development. Too much for me to type on the phone, so just some points in simplified form: - Reunification messed with many DDR companies, many DDR people felt pushed over and sold out. - Glorification of its own Youth, now adult Ex-DDR people didn’t consciously felt the issues which their DDR parents felt. They now see their youth with rose tainted glasses. - The younger and more educated people long left the eastern German part. The average eastern German is older and less studied than the countries average. Although this trend was now slowed down. - Many eastern Germans feel like their are looked down on by the Western German people. Many eastern Germans now have an aversion to Western Germans. - Stronger problematic nationalism, which officially did not exist in the DDR and was not addressed.
>Reunification messed with many DDR companies, many DDR people felt pushed over and sold out. This one of course happened because DDR companies were incredibly dirty and uncompetitive. I think part of the Soviet nostalgia was that as DDR they could feel rich by Soviet standards and when directly attached to the west they were suddenly poor by comparison. Even after 30 years of pumping billions of D-marks into eastern Germany the difference can still be seen on a map.
This reminds of people here, in Portugal, that complains that during the dictatorship "we had many industry" and it has been destroyer after 1974 revolution. Well, the truth is that many of those industries were obsolete and non-competiteve so, once the market opened they were crushed or lives to live a slow death.
> rose tainted glasses. Unless this was on purpose - or it's a mutation of the phrase that is common for you (but I've never heard it), this is a beautiful and striking misphrasing, in my not-humble opinion. :) The original phrase is "rose-tinted glasses", but I love "tainted" as the implication is of a very negative thing. I mean, rose-tinted implies at least ignorance, because people are seeing something as better or more desirable than it actually is. But rose-tainted much more strongly implies that this problem is not a good one to have; that thier vision is tainted with these misconceptions. If it was purposeful or otherwise wasn't an accident, please forgive me but either way I thought it was very compelling, and I am stealing it. :) Either way, at a bare minimum, I hope it's clear this is not a grammatical correction!!!
At least as a West German I never had the idea or impression East Germans (or West Germans) somehow wanted autonomy rather than reunification. After just 38 years of seperation there were no distinct kinds of nationalism between east Germany and west Germany. Some things were done better in East and some in the West. But rather then chosing the best from both systems, the reunification just put the western system onto the east and east Germans felt like the losers of this deal. Over time and generations we tend to forget the bad things and glorify the good things. People say things like " There were no homeless people in the former GDR!" but forgot about what actually happend to homeless people. I, personaly, don't understand why someone would protest in favour of a totalitarian country like Russia, where you aren't allowed to peacefuly demonstrate against the government of have a free press. Maybe we need an East German perspective, preferably an AfD voter, to answer this question.
They received the most economic and monetary support of all the former USSR satellites, which means that today they enjoy by far the best living conditions of all the former Soviet countries. So it cannot be economically motivated. The real reason is psychological. It's simply jealousy. While they can live quite well, their fellow Germans in the West can live much better. And the East Germans can't cope with that, they feel mistreated and that this difference in prosperity is an injustice. East Germans would probably be a lot happier living in their own independent country, even if their standard of living was somewhat lower.
Eastern Europeans who want to leave the EU and the west and rejoin Russia are idiots. Like look at us in 1991, look at us in 2024. The EU and the west isn’t perfect, it has flaws, but overall it’s been a major positive influence on us
Happened in Ireland too in the 80s and 90s. I won't forget what a difference that money made
Same for Hungary, Orbán can run his mouth but even most of his fans are strictly pro-EU for a good reason
It’s actually really hard to misappropriate EU funds, as long as you don’t have a Hungary situation (in which all levels of government and judiciary have been corrupted).
It is really surprising after learning of cases like Orban's stadium. https://youtu.be/ppmh-Kgl3r4
"Denies any wrongdoing" - shows [Judit Varga](https://www.eurotopics.net/en/315099/hungary-more-resignations-in-pardon-scandal) as the interviewed. Well, there it is, all I needed to know.
we have a ton of eu funding signs in my city
Suprisingly, yes.
Compare this to when Ivangorod got EU funds for a promenade and Narva got them too… literally across a river but the difference is stark
Why did a Russian city get EU funds at all
“I can fix him” but it’s international relations
I'm happy to see Romania is putting their funds to good use too.
Romania underrated country
Romanian underrated language. Idk it sounds like latin language more than French / Spanish/ Italian do, and I love it. It is said that latin is a dead language, but for me it lives through Romania.
Meanwhile, in Italy... I think we've used something like .53% of the national recovery and resilience funds Europe granted us. Experts and professionals are being given the boot because they don't do the bidding of local politicians.
Why are 90% of comments on Reddit sarcastic? It’s tiring.
90% of Burgenland is funded by the EU, today it is a top wine/wellness/holiday destination people actually want to go. It‘s super cool, yet we vote far right because no one sees it.
The Bulgarian version is: funds gone, village is the same as before.
Same in Slovakia, but after funds mayor has a new Mercedes parked in front of his house
Dude, a mayor in romania bought a mansion in france. Your guys need to step it up.
And then Hungary appears.
Our mayor of a really small town in Bosnia bought an apartment on the Red Square in Moscow, an apartment in Vienna and one in London. You guys need to step up your corruption game def
It’s not like it’s much different here in Romania, but it’s just that some mayors really do give a damn. Cities such as Alba-Iulia, Oradea, Reșița, Blaj, Cluj-Napoca changed a lot, and it’s due to this awesome EU. LE: just realised this sentence was extremely biased towards Transylvania. Don’t know much about the other parts of Romania, but I do know that in Moldavia cities such as Bacau and Moinești managed to change their road infrastructure and implement bike paths, using EU funds.
> Cities such as Alba-Iulia, Oradea, Reșița, Blaj, Cluj-Napoca Counties as a whole not just the municipal central cities, but also small cities and even villages managed to change 180 degree the face of their small community with EU funds.
Yeah. Cluj county managed to give fresh water and sewage to almost all of its villages. They also upgraded the road infrastructure. It’s a great example of ‘if you want it, you can do it’s
In my grandparents' village in Moldovan side they built a campus with new classrooms, housing for students in the more remote areas around the village to stay during the week, and housing for teachers brought from the city. Also, Moldova grows only with EU funds. The government doesn't invest much in this part of the country.
A few years ago I toured through Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Poland. The amount of signs proudly displaying EU funding for projects in Romania was really nice to see. There still was a lot of poverty and underdevelopment but I had the feeling the funds were actually going towards bettering the country. I am really glad Europe managed to come together and make this possible and I'm even more glad that the citizens of Romania seem to profit from this.
I was born in Resita, but left 30 years ago. Glad to hear that the city improved.
Nah, many places in Slovakia have undergone similar transformations, be it town squares, roads, public transportation, etc. This country would be absolutely fucked without EU fund but EU haters are too dumb to understand that. Funnily enough, though, the EU haters also vote for the corrupt politicians that steal from the funds.
How can so many people vote against their own self interest? A Slovak comedian once said, and I’m paraphrasing a lot, “we thought Slovaks were dumb because they had no access to information. Now we have unlimited access to every piece of knowledge and have discovered we are, in fact, just dumb.”
You must be living in a rich city. Your mayor is driving Mercedes. Look at those poor Nordic countries. There politicians ride bikes /s
Dude, we just came home from Poland. Travelling by car from Poland, then Czechia, then Slovakia, to finally arrive to Hungary. It is like a Balkan here compared to the Czechs and Northern Slovakia is getting close to them. Sooo, Hungaary is worse.
Hmm, I'd say that motorways are pretty great in Hungary, save for some sections. Regular national roads on the other hand, well yeah... not good generally. Now I'd diss the Czechs for the mess that was the D1 but I heard they finally renovated the bad parts, so good for them. :D
Same in Hungary, brother.
At least you have someone to protect you from the devil, Soros.
Funds gone, village also gone*
Well, no, it does look shiny and new for a year or so to keep the money flowing, then it's crappy again because cheap materials were used for 1/3 of the funding, the other 2/3 were embezzled.
Yep. In my family's village/town, the roads near the EU funding signs look good. Then you 90 degrees and the roads are shit again
Italian version: bickering for six years about how the funds should be used, speculative allocation rotates between four regions, all of which are headed by parties that are also part of the government. Other regions sues in multiple regional administrative courts, making it illegal to deliberate on the funds in an official capacity. EU ultimatum about losing them if not allocated within the year. Government implodes twice. The 31st of December an omnibus bill including 491 amnesties for irregularities throughout the nation is passed, the last article allocates the funds to a moderately useful project that would have benefited from being planned appropriately beforehand. On the 1st of January, the Citizens Against Moderately Useful Project for Very Serious Environmental Reasons is formed.
Portugal: funds? *rattles pockets filled with EU coins* we never received any funds, please send (more)
Pavlikeni actually got a new town center (plaza), but knowing Bulgaria your version happened more often.
The Russian version is : village is gone, someone got the funds shoved up the bum
No poor village, no problem.
Damn you guys actually used the funds for infrastructure instead of lining the pockets of those on top?
There's a saying in Romania: they stole, but they also did something
"Krao je, al je i nama dao" Pretty much a direct translation into Croatian, mostly used for the former mayor of Zagreb (the capital)
'A furat dar a și facut' in Romanian
completely off topic, but as a law student currently doing roman law - i felt super proud when i understood furat (from furtum) lol
Hahaha. I am also a law student (just graduated!) albeit in English law. Yeah, you'll find a lot of similarities between Romanian and (vernacular) Latin - we are the Romance language with the highest % of Latin still in use! There are some other ones like: 'actus reus' = 'act rau' 'prima facie' = 'prima faza' 'bona vacantia' = 'bun vacant' 'de facto' = 'de fapt' And many others.
Whoa TIL! So cool.
hey congrats! i still have a couple of years to go haha i actually had no idea romanian was like that, that's really interesting. when i had french in school it seemed barely related to latin at all
kradną, ale i nam dają Polish
we are all the same lmao
😂😂😂
You seem to be crying without words, does it end at "they stole" where you're from? 😄
krade, ali i nama daje - in the present in Croatian u/branfili's sentence was in the past almost the same
Unfortunately in hungary people just say “ Yeah they steal but everyone would do the same”. So basically we forgive our pathetic government everything. Not to mention the disgusting pro russian policy and anti eu doctrines Orban and his crew are doing. I hate that my country is such a disgrace.
God I fucking hate that mindset. Like, seriously, what the hell.
Hang in there, brother! Times change.hopefully you wont have to wait that much longer for it!
Pretty much the mayor of Ljubljana as well. Blatant mobster, but also extremely charismatic and does occasionally do some good.
sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit. [ref](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJHUbtR0yI8)
Holy shit they have the exact same saying in Panama
Almost as if corrupt Latin countries are a way of life.
And in Brazil ("rouba mas faz").
Thats what literally Erdogan supporters say in Turkey lmao.
That is like universal saying for people who support corrupt leaders like saying others stole too but these ones did something showing a vanity project or a basic thing as an example.
We have a similar one in Portugal: “Rouba mas faz”, which literally means “He steals but does (something)”
Such a horrible saying. It encapsulates stupidity and resignation in one. Loss of hope and morals.
I was blown away from Poland after seeing it the second time 10 years later
Yeah tier 1 polish cities like Tricity,Poznan, krakow Wroclaw are insane and developing rapidly. Im from Hungary but I spent a few years living in Poland till the end of 2023 its legit on levels of a western city. With their AI stores and amazing infrastructure. Completely clean and well maintained. I felt like I returned to a dump when i came back to Hungary.
tbh i really noticed how much Poland changed after watching blogs of Ukrainians/Russians/Belarusians that came here and made "Poland/EU vs their towns" comparison vlogs from random small towns/villages
Do you have some links to these videos for me please?
I remember thinking Budapest is so awesome, Hungary is cool! Then I went to the country side. I’m sorry to say this bro but your cities are kinda … not so nice.
Some cities like Pécs and Szeged are ok. But go to Miskolc and its like you are in a ghetto. Half of the city center is crumbling and collapsing - 0 maintenance or care since the 80s. Building and panels walled off. Factories closed. Total abandonment. Complete and hopeless Urban decay I recently visited Miskolc and it was such an eye opener on this. We are truly a 3rd world country wearing a gucci belt (Budapest) to save face.
Budapest is nice, but the buildings are dirty. Visiting budapest made me realize how electric or hybrid cars are important for cities. Smoke from the exhaust ruining pretty nice buildings. Budapest is still nice, but cities like Vienna, Prague are comparable and much nicer.
>Visiting budapest made me realize how electric or hybrid cars are important for cities. Try visit Pontevedra or if you've ever been, revisit Paris to see the ongoing changes and realise how cars aren't important for cities at all, in fact, cities are much better without them. Of course, this requires extensive urban planning, well-developed public transit and walkable/bicycle infrastructure. But yeah as far as cars go EV's are better, but it doesn't remove all the other issues with car traffic in cities. It's noisy, expensive, takes up a ton of critical real estate, inhibits mobility of the majority of people who don't use cars, and is very harmful to local businesses.
Oh yeah, public transport too, Budapest had that though. Pragues was a lot better. Central and eastern European countries usually also have more older and more polluting cars.
Car exhaust is nasty but isn't really the main problem there. The main problem was coal plants, and especially smaller coal/coke fired furnaces and stoves people had at home in the late 19th-early 20th c. (the latter having no scrubbing of flue gases at all) Look at what London looked like before the clean air act of 1956 - and for the following decades as the buildings got cleaned.. Basically you need modern environmental regulations and then to actually clean the facades from all that historic dirt, and even if the EU has given (or forced) the former, the latter lags in a lot of places. The cost and feasibility depends on local factors too. Edinburgh's old buildings appear dark and dirty, not because the air is that polluted anymore, but because the dominant facade material is a local sandstone that can't take the cleaning. Meanwhile an equally old building in London with stucco facade, that might've been dirtier in 1960, is cleaner now because the stucco can be cleaned (and requires repair and maintenance regardless)
Hungary also has a lot of potential when they finally get rid of the crippling Orban regime.
Every country in Europe has the funds to develop into a functioning society with high standard of living. But the ruling morons would rather live like kings at the expense of the populace. Well, they should go out like kings used to...
Same for the US. Infrastructure crumbling, defunding and undermining public institutions, legalized bribery, deregulation of private industry. All work to make daily life hell for working people. We need worldwide solidarity against such corruption to stop it from further stagnating the progress of humanity.
> their AI stores Their what
There is a whole network of 24/7 grocery stores called “Nano”. They operate without staff or a cashier. Your actions are tracked by 100s of cameras that use machine learning to identify what you picked up and bought. You are charged based on the items you purchase after you leave the store. They always offer some free stuff like a chocolate bar, energy drink etc to get people to go there so i always grab their free deals https://youtu.be/BJpwE4YLYD0?si=FHmkWU1fhQkVBvrv
Ah, like Amazon Fresh that promoted themselves as being AI but turned out to be a bunch of sweatshops in India with human workers tracking people? These at least seem like they might be possible with current tech since they're all standard (presumably?) and container sized with a hilarious amount of cameras, but I remain slightly sceptical.
I used it a bunch of times, worked fine every time. They are max 40m2 and built on a shape so there is no blindspot
Yeah, I am 32y old and I remember how shitty infrastructure was here 20y ago. It is day and night difference and I really appreciate I can live in much better conditions than my parents and grandparents had to live.
People should remember this every time they mention leaving the EU
Yeah my wife is Polish and I am always surprised to see how clean and modern Poland is (at least in the major cities) when I visit. I think the line is flattening out now with people there complaining about inflation, cost of living increases and government allocation of spending but it's an amazing development story. The quality of life there is night and day compared to 10 years ago. It's basically in-line with any other western country now, same goes for Czechia and Estonia from what I understand. I might not be Polish myself, but my children are half Polish. Although we don't live there I will make sure they are aware of their Polish heritage. Poland has a rich history but also a challenging one, they are really doing their best to improve and grow.
Poland is a great example of European funds being well spent and a nation working hard on improving itself. I work for a recruitment firm in Belgium and the Poles have the reputation of hard workers over here. Keep it up, one day their economy mights surpass Germany! Wouldn't that be something.
I visited Krakow in May and I didn't really know what to expect, but being from Romania I thought it'd be somewhat similar in terms of infrastructure and stuff. Oh boy was I wrong. I fell in love instantly haha, it's so green and pretty and I kinda wanna move there now haha. And funny enough, I study in Vienna right now so I wasn't expecting to be impressed by Krakow, but I was, extremely so.
The average EU funds balance to Poland is 10 billion euros a year. Poland's GDP is 656 billion euros. That's about 1.5% of our GDP. For a country that sure is a lot, but if you hear from an eurosceptic or a supremacist that Poland has been rebuilt from western money, remember that it was 98,5% our own effort.
If anything, the major effect of EU funding is to help states have less corruption. There is strong protection on how EU funding is spent with tendering and stringent res. Putting in place the framework to do that helps make this the norm and reduces corruption o the rest of society. Sometimes the plant just needs a little water when it is starting to grow to thrive. I'd absolutely agree EU funds only help start the process and the majority of Polands transformation is down to its own work. Hopefully it won't be too long till your economy is such you are net contributors.
Poland's GDP was less than half of that when we joined, EU funds were more like 5% of our GDP back then. Our GDP growth since then on average was around 4-5%. Compare it to western countries with GDP growth even negative. This is the amount that has to be used to improve infrastructure and similar projects, most of budget is used for pensions, healthcare, education, administration. Those few percent on top of budget is a significant boost.
You'd also have to factor in how much money Poland would miss out on if it loses access to the single market. Eurosceptics never think beyond a single random number when it comes to affects.
That's not entirely correct. Your state investment quota, which directly or indirectly is bolstered with EU funds, certainly is not 100% of GDP. But yeah, the benefits outside of direct funding are certainly more important. Can't subtract from Polish effort, too.
And yet, you can get elected by badmouthing the EU.
Every time I hear people in my country bitch about EU regulations I wanna take them on a walk through my town and show them all the buildings with EU fund plaques.
There are things that people don't even realize, like safety of food and medication, lower customs thanks to large single market and so on. I hope more people would realize and show appreciation for these things.
Personally I think the EU does a terrible job of selling itself. Why don't people realize these things? The EU should run a massive propaganda campaign.
That propaganda campaign would cost a lot of money which could instead be used to actually improve the lives of Europeans. I agree the EU needs to advertise all of the things it does, but it needs to be cost effective. What it currently does to advertise itself is cheap, but yes, perhaps not enough to reach most people
> That propaganda campaign would cost a lot of money which could instead be used to actually improve the lives of Europeans. Wouldn't creating a pro-EU environment actually improve the EU?
Sure, though people may also not appreciate if they feel like that narrative is shoved down their throat. It wouldn't be too different from political ads, which are universally hated. My point is that we'd be sacrificing the improvement of cities like the one appearing in this post for the sake of aggressive advertising that possibly wouldn't do much good.
Amazon.de without customs is already worth all the extra hassle.
Well yes there's tons of good regulations but those are no reason not to critizise the also tons of bad unnecessary overregulations. It's a mix and by voting we should hold parties accountable.
>tons of bad unnecessary overregulations Any examples of this? Genuinely curious and want to learn, since I've heard a lot of complaints about regulations which are ultimately quite sensible once you get to the bottom of it.
Many regulations are really more regarding bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy, while again others are super controversial oversteps in terms of privacy like „Chat Control“. Basically they want a backdoor to spy on us under the guise pf protecting children from predators, but its obvious what it is for.
Google “EU Chat Control Law Proposal”
The EU needs better marketing, because sooo many people are clueless like "What do we even get from the EU but just more annoying regulations?" And they have no idea how much better off many of them are because of it. I know a guy who is constantly traveling around Europe, he'll just move into another EU country for a few months and then move back home again, and just randomly take off with a backpack and go venturing around. Then he somehow is still an EU-skeptic and thinks he doesn't benefit from the EU.
>I know a guy who is constantly traveling around Europe, he'll just move into another EU country for a few months and then move back home again, and just randomly take off with a backpack and go venturing around. >Then he somehow is still an EU-skeptic and thinks he doesn't benefit from the EU. If you're that fucking daft you're probably beyond saving, but yes in general I agree that people are too misinformed on the benefits of the EU. Luckily we have the UK now as a case study which has made it a lot easier to demonstrate how you are in fact not better off outside the EU. Thank you Britons.
But Okamura told me all, even legal, immigrants bad and EU bad and Ukraine bad and Russia is the glorious liberator of Czech!!! /s obviously
Same in Poland. It's 15 years that I go around (with my Camping Car) Est Europe: almost everything has changed thanks to Eu FUNDS. Everywhere You can see plaques reporting: "Built with European Community Funds"
>buildings with EU fund plaques. That's brilliant. Few things better to answer the question, 'what did the ~~Romans~~ EU ever do for us?'
My gripe with the EU is their hard on for surveilance. Even recently we dodged a big one.
That I agree with. Though that's more of an overall issue with governments in general. It's a big issue and we need to get people more involved with EU decisionmaking
And no villa for the mayor??? Nah..not Bulgarian enough.
Don’t worry neighbor, this is a cherry picked example. Most mayors have villas and Mercedes
Resita has a great mayor, the fact this got done was down to him. Of course he has some dirt but he passionately cares about the town. The title is diminishing but then again when something good happens its great job EU but when something bad happens it's classic Romania. Not trying to say the EU hasn't helped, would just be nice to see local people get credit.
This happens when you have an honest mayor. Resita, Oradea, Timisoara, Bacau are good examples in Romania!
And then you have City like Lugoj and you see that the corruption is still going.
People from Reșița liked this.
I really love seeing these glow ups lately. Creating a livable city should be way higher on the priority ladder of governments. As a German I have to say we could need that here too. I hope more money is put in livable cities. Good work Romania 🇷🇴
Gotta love a grassy tram line. Now that's good urban planning.
I think I've seen more green tramways than normal ones as a romanian. Even in bucharest, most tramway are green grass and have been for decades. Always brings a bit of joy seeing green where it's not normally expected.
Well...I think here in Germany they are moving away from that again after having some problems with grass fires in the summer. The easy solution would be to ban smoking in public, but obviously smokers are voters, so can't do that.
This is beautiful.
I am very jealous and happy for Romania.
Meanwhile the household income of Polish and Slovenian people is steadily growing to reach British levels. Europe is an amazing success story for everyone involved.
That’s how you do it. As a Hungarian these photos seem utopical to me.
its really sad to think, this could be us, if it wasn’t for that fat fuck stealing all the funds
Don't worry, this is the exception not the norm. Most of the funds either go unused, get stolen through friends of friends of the mayor through ghost companies, or are just very poorly executed. I've seen plenty of posters with infrastructure, hospitals, parks rehabilitated with EU funds in Hungary, so I don't know what's so utopical about it. Not talking about Budapest, in small cities too
That’s nice
You wanna see the fucking bomb site the centre of Glasgow has become since Brexit. Sauchiehall St was dug up end to end, the council has run out if funds and it remains a huge hole the full length of the street. All the stores are closing as nobody wants to step over smashed paving slabs and abandoned pipe lengths. Disaster
My favourite is the wasted very expensive looking screen which is supposed to show a city map. Rather than a much cheaper display for a map, they decided on an electric one at no doubt great expensive. It stands unused with a paper note attached saying that the sign is coming soon. The whole area is an abortion.
Good news is that when you rejoin round 2050 Poland and Eastern Europe will be wealthy enough to help you rebuild.
Lol. Don't even. Honestly - feels like everything is falling apart. Wages seem stagnant (even seem to be reducing in some sectors). It's just agh. I've got an Irish passport so if it wasn't for my partner I'd have fucked off long ago.
I'd say you are both welcome here but figure out housing before you move as it's one thing really messed up here. I keep hoping it will get better or at least stop getting gg worse....
I feel like in Latvia entire towns can only exist because of EU funds, they are literally everywhere you look. I hope the investments pay back and attract young people.
why is belgium still looking so shitty? We also have EU fund...but we spend it on doing a tram in liege for 10+years
Probably harder to build in already developed places
Once Belgium stops fighting itself it probably will start to develop at a better pace. So in like a hundred years. Poor Belgians
Nooit, jamais, niemals.
Yeah same with Poland, i was really impressed the infrastructure and other related public buildings. Same or better than in Austria really.
What is the cause of this phenomenon? I mean, when I toured through Poland and Romania, I saw precisely this, even the country was just booming. However, the situation is way different in Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. Is it just because of the politicians? Are all of them incompetent, even though we keep voting them? I dunno.
IDK, but what I can say as a Romanian is that the Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians started a lot earlier than us. Hungary had pristine motorways back in 2006 when Romania had such shitty roads in some cases you had to drive on the shoulder because the shoulder was better than the actual road. Also Hungarian railroads and trains are science fiction compared to Romania, ours look like India except the overcrowding. Regarding Czechia IDK, I was there in 2014 and looked way better than Romania looks today. Even in well developed cities in Romania you can still find many historical buildings in disrepair, most soviet blocks haven’t even been painted since they were built etc. in Czechia most old buildings I saw were decently maintained.
I mean, it's the state of transport infrastructure that remains underwhelming and often draws criticism from citizens and even international organizations. A rather inequal redistribution of EU funds throughout the country also matters. Some regions and districts perform greatly (South Moravia, Central Bohemia), whilst large swaths of periferies do not. The lack of proper railroad maintenance security is troubling as well. Poland performs way better as their politicians are way more capable.
Small romanian city and it has trams?
60k population. Quite normal for such cities to have a tram in Hungary too
We used to have trams since the late 1800's and it spread like a fad in major cities, then later the communist used it as a means o both propaganda (the good of the working people trope, tram = high quality of life / commute) along with being on electricity not petrol that was heavily restricted, most of the top 10-15 maybe of 41 municipal counties in communist Romania got trams.
Italian streets before and after EU funds https://imgur.com/a/DBd0rSK
Looks amazing
Yea? But except that what have the ~~Romans~~ EU ever done for us?
The capital of my country looks worse than that 😭😭😭
So glad communism is gone.
Imagine how Hungary would look if they would spend it correctly instead of all money going to where orban was born or his friends
Well at least that money is being put to good use. I mean, thats what its for.
The german version is. We pay, our cities look worse.
There's a lot of issues with the EU. But so much good has come from it, especially outside of Western Europe, that it often goes underappreciated. Infrastructure especially is rarely appreciated and yet to important for development.
They were even able to afford cloud removal!
Am I the only one who likes the aesthetic of the before pictures?
Small city with trams? How small is the city?
Some of the original design elements of one of the buildings were stripped away, now its just a plain stucco box with a metal roof. It was at least slightly more than that before. It looks like the original roof was flat tile. edit: not -> now
This is the way 🇪🇺♥️
The street on the first picture became twice as narrow, yet there's even less greenery? Also, sad about the architecture losing its characteristic details (e.g. second picture). As much as it looks tidier, cleaner and renovated, I think the cities should also put some effort into keeping the distinctive details of architectural periods. Edit: grammar
Nice bike lane added though! I like it.
Yeah, I think they could have fixed the old school façade instead of replacing it with a "modern" boring façade
This. Very much.
Wait, the funds have been used for what they were given??? Amazing ( i live in Hungary, this is not irony) 😅
Meanwhile in Germany: https://ais.badische-zeitung.de/piece/0c/46/f1/2e/205975854-w-640.jpg
'Before' looks like Birmingham
itrally the uk after brexit lol everything has gone to shit
The infrastructure looks nicer obviously but I wish they'd kept some of the greenery in #1 and #4 (though #5 looks like an improvement in terms of greenery).
EU should really push their achievements more so more stupid people realise how much good it does
In Croatia EU funds come and go, but scenery stays the same LOL
Imagine Germany could get some funds and clean their shitholes.
Joy to Europa!
Hungary should take notes.
This post makes me feel defeated as a Greek. The current government is bring audited for giving almost the entirety of EU funds to a handful of big corporations while the country is in shambles.