Greece has consistently received at least 2% net of their GNI each year in subsidies from EU since 2000. This is investment in Greece with EU fees removed. (EL is Greece in the data below).
Germany consistently operated at a net deficit of 6-8 B euro/year in terms of EU fees vs EU investment in Germany.
That same wealth transfer is taking place in the EU as well. Not on the same scale possibly, but it certainly takes place.
Greece's 6B net gain in 2008 makes up 1/9th of their total welfare spend in 2009 for instance (56B).
I agree that it was not a good move to join the currency union for Greece. That was a bad choice by Greece, and a greedy move to manage finances short term with artificially cheap borrowing.
2% of GNI is a trivial sum in comparison to the scale of fiscal transfers between US states.
In poorer US states, about 10% of gross state product is collected as federal taxes, whereas something like 20–30% of gross state product comes to those states through various federal spending.
Germany consistently operated at a net deficit of 6-8 B euro/year in terms of EU fees vs EU investment in Germany.
That same wealth transfer is taking place in the EU as well. Not on the same scale possibly, but it certainly takes place.
Greece's 6B net gain in 2008 makes up 1/9th of their total welfare spend in 2009 for instance (56B).
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/financialreport/2014/annex/3/inde...
https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG
I agree that it was not a good move to join the currency union for Greece. That was a bad choice by Greece, and a greedy move to manage finances short term with artificially cheap borrowing.