Comments by "Nigel Johnson" (@nigeljohnson9820) on "Getting Europe back on its feet: the Recovery and Resilience Facility" video.

What would they have called the fund it if they did not have covid to blame? Italy would have needed the cash, with or without covid, it just needs more now.
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@TheSuperappelflap my point was that the EU was already in trouble before covid. Certainly Italy would have needed a bailout even without covid. You seem to believe that the fund money will be in the form of a loan, in practice the recipient states wanted and got a large proportion of the money as a gift, with no requirement for a payback. It is an eu myth, that what is good for one member state is good for all. This could only be true in a federal system, with a central tax system and economic management, even then the distribution of wealth may not be equitable, as is evident by the US experience. In practice, the donor states will be paying money to their competitors, a fact that will not be lost on EU industries, who may well locate manufacturing to the poorest member states. This is the consequence of the EU operating as a microcosm of globalisation, where manufacturing is located in the poorest regions to manufacture goods for the richest.
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@TheSuperappelflap who runs the European economy??? The European economy does not have any central control. It would need to federalise to do so. At he moment there is no guarantee that money donated will find its way back to the donor.
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