I took the bit about re-reading out of my post as it was unnecessarily snarky. Still, we're clearly not seeing eye to eye here at all. Every "benefit" of the fees posited in this thread a country can have for free, other than the EU dropping tariffs.
If a non-EU government wants to give foreign aid to Poland, it can.
If it wants to invest in Romania (normal definition of invest), it can.
If it wants to enable mass immigration of min-wage workers, it can. (and the UK government is doing so right now).
If it wants to align its laws with those of the EU, it can.
Not a single benefit in this thread is actually a benefit. EU membership fees are mandatory foreign aid European countries are expected to pay as a price of not being tariffed, and that's an artificial "benefit" that nobody else in the world charges for and that the EU also doesn't charge non-European countries for.
I'm not going to get into an argument about who benefits from cheap labour, it's a different debate and well worn. On your other points:
• The EU isn't a place of growth. Last year it managed GDP growth of 1%, the year before it was 0.4%. The US managed near 3% each time. It's scary that people living inside it aren't aware of this. EU growth should be higher than the US given that it contains countries still catching up from the communist era.
• Blue Card is mandatory under EU law. It's "not used" by a few countries because it was forced on them with the loophole of there being no minimum issuance quotas, not because it's a voluntary scheme they didn't choose to sign up for.
But once again, we seem to be talking at opposites here. What claim are you responding to with this Blue Card stuff? Is it the "not if it's inside" bit? Because to repeat, Blue Card doesn't let you attract as many migrants as you want if you're inside the EU - it has a legal requirement for higher-than-average salaries - and obviously it's not a benefit of paying membership fees, which is where this thread started.
I have read the whole conversation and he just lives in an alternate reality.
The EU has little benefits for the citizens of rich countries, expect for the dominant class, political and business, because they got more power in various different ways.
Outside of that, it is a net loss for your average person and in fact the current events show very well the lie of its usefulness.
Allegedly the EU is good because it gives its citizens a power comparable to the other big/rich countries like the US or China. But in fact, it is very weak on almost all fronts because it just built a dystopian bureaucratic system that only favored bureaucrat creation at the expense of everything else.
It has terrible defense/army, terrible industry, terrible commercial balance in general, terrible innovation (the main reason of no tech stuff there) and more I can't think about right now...
The only thing it has done "successfully" is legislate the shit out of everything, at great cost for everyone. And it didn't even allow to meet the idealistic goals (like the greenwashing and Germany's moronic "leadership" on that).
The trade war ongoing highlight the inadequacy of the EU and the reality is that their arsenal for retaliation is rather thin, without hurting their own population that is.
If you think the EU doesn't work, you either haven't been paying attention or don't understand it.
> It has terrible defense/army, terrible industry, terrible commercial balance in general, terrible innovation (the main reason of no tech stuff there
Yep, you don't understand it. Just for starters to illustrate how wrong you are... the EU doesn't have a military nor defence. France does. Bulgaria does. They have vastly different priorities and budgets and interests and industries. The EU has nothing to do with that other than the occasional collaboration or common funding like right now.
Also, innovation in EU countries is a very complex topic that again, if you're just dismissing as "terrible" because of EU legislation, you either don't understand the topic or haven't been paying attention. Things like market size and capital available impact the successfulness of newcomer innovator much more than the supposed lack of innovation many Americans who don't have any clue about what's happening decry.
If a non-EU government wants to give foreign aid to Poland, it can.
If it wants to invest in Romania (normal definition of invest), it can.
If it wants to enable mass immigration of min-wage workers, it can. (and the UK government is doing so right now).
If it wants to align its laws with those of the EU, it can.
Not a single benefit in this thread is actually a benefit. EU membership fees are mandatory foreign aid European countries are expected to pay as a price of not being tariffed, and that's an artificial "benefit" that nobody else in the world charges for and that the EU also doesn't charge non-European countries for.
I'm not going to get into an argument about who benefits from cheap labour, it's a different debate and well worn. On your other points:
• The EU isn't a place of growth. Last year it managed GDP growth of 1%, the year before it was 0.4%. The US managed near 3% each time. It's scary that people living inside it aren't aware of this. EU growth should be higher than the US given that it contains countries still catching up from the communist era.
• Blue Card is mandatory under EU law. It's "not used" by a few countries because it was forced on them with the loophole of there being no minimum issuance quotas, not because it's a voluntary scheme they didn't choose to sign up for.
But once again, we seem to be talking at opposites here. What claim are you responding to with this Blue Card stuff? Is it the "not if it's inside" bit? Because to repeat, Blue Card doesn't let you attract as many migrants as you want if you're inside the EU - it has a legal requirement for higher-than-average salaries - and obviously it's not a benefit of paying membership fees, which is where this thread started.