Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "Why Eastern Europe is Becoming More Powerful (and Germany Less)" video.

  1. True and it's based on the economy, population size and the military, eastern European countries getting this right doesn't really shift the needle on balance of power and actually, in the case of Poland and Hungary, their power is being limited by their own actions as they'll never gain too much through Europe unless they change their ways. Personally, I think the real shift of power will actually be away from Italy towards Spain, mainly because Italy have a declining economy that are slipping behind the rest, they have an unstable political system and are becoming more like the UK where they blame the EU for all the wrongs in Italy and not wanting to look at where the real problems are in Italy. In any case, did the power balance shift as the UK left? Nothing really changed and I doubt much is going to change here apart from what I said above with Italy and Spain, as for the eastern EU members, they will gain more powers as they become more modernized, but let's not kid ourselves, it's not going to be Poland or Hungary that gains that power, it's going to be the others in the region and you only have to look at the UK when they were in the UK, they always got pushed aside by the other members and a big reason for that is because they were obstructive and not constructive on the EU project, you want to gain more power in the EU, you really have to be a pro EU countries whiles having a decent economy and population size, the UK could have had that but it was too Eurosceptic and was push to the fringes of the project, the same will likely be the case for Poland and Hungary unless they change.
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  2.  @chrishieke1261  Yep, emotions are running high, they are not looking at the situation objectively, yes some countries messed up more than others but on balance of power, it doesn't actually change much, especially because the biggest member in the east, Poland are slipping on democracy and to have power in the EU, you really have to be a team player, Germany and France are good at that, the UK when in the EU wasn't and it showed as it got sidelined a lot on many EU policies. With that in mind, even small EU countries from the west or east can have an impact but it has to be on overall policies that are good for all the members as a team player, Poland and Hungary are getting it badly wrong and the war in Ukraine does help Poland a little but it's no get out of jail card for what it's doing back home. The key to power in the EU is to be progressive, constructive and not obstructive, the UK had all the key ingredients to be a bigger player in the EU, but it was obstructive and got pushed aside a lot by other EU members, I suspect the same could happen to Poland and Hungary if they don't get their act together and their lose could be the gain for other EU members, especially the ones in the east.
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  3. The balance doesn't shift that easierlly and it usually depends on two factors, the economy and population size of a country, so yes, it could become more neutral in the EU away from Germany and France but it doesn't look like it's shifting eastwards, it just looks like it's being rebalanced because Germany and France held too much sway in the EU in the first place. I think the real shift in power is moving away from Italy towards Spain, the reason for that is because Italy are too erratic, with an unstable political system and quite an Eurosceptic population that blames the EU for a lot of the wrongs in the country, a bit like how the UK did, Spain on the other hand is a growing economy, a more pro EU country and a more stable political system, it's easy to see how they could push Italy aside. As for the eastern EU countries, the balance was always going to shift as those countries become more modern, but I think it's many of the other smaller eastern members that will benefit the most, not Poland unless it changes its ways as that is going to hold it back. As for vindication, no one has been vindicated, the west has shown poor judgement on Russia, going back all the way to Crimea, it's all well and good some eastern EU countries saying they got it right and yet most of those same countries are more dependent on Russia oil or gas than many of the western countries, if they really beleaved what they were saying, they would've put their money where their mount is and shifted away from Russian oil and gas years ago, yet most of them didn't and I suspect the reason they didn't, they wanted the rest of the EU countries to do it to share the risk, basically, they had the choice to do it alone but wanted it done by the EU or the western members, probably so the blame could be put on them when energy prices rises, after all, Russian oil and gas was cheap before the war, so it's easy for them to say they were right but at the end of the day, they did nothing to change it even thought they had the power to do so as each EU member can buy it's own oil and gas from wherever they want. So don't get me wrong, the balance of power is shifting and it was going to shift regardless of the war, it was going to shift as the eastern countries become richer and more modern but it's likely only going to shift towards countries that have the interest of the EU and other members interest at heart, that rules out the likes of Poland and Hungary as it stands and it's also why I think Spain could gain at the expense of Italy. In any case, the real weakness isn't in the east or the west of the EU, the real weakness is that all the countries are pulling in different directions, the EU countries really need to speak with one voice on political, military and forign policy matters, if they don't, they'll always get divided by the likes of Russia, China and even the US which are more than happy to play EU countries off each other for it's own benefit, the truth is, the EU countries need to start standing on their own feet and the only way to do that is to combine resources through the EU because let's be realistic, EU countries on their own have zero chance at competing with the likes of China or the US and even thought the US is the EU's friend, they are still a rival to European countries, especially if the EU continues to rise to power as the Japanese found out in the 80's. My advice to the eastern EU members, even the smaller ones, if you want to gain more power in the EU, you have to be a team player that wants to make the EU project work, if you do that, even smaller countries can gain more power but bigger countries will likely always have more power because of it's economic and population clout. In any case, this is quite a poor video from TLDR, badly researched and it's clearly done from a British perspective on the EU and how they think the Europeans think, I know this because I'm British and even I can see how Brits see the EU project and how Europeans on the continent sees it and to put it mildly, many Brits have a wrapped view on the EU project and see to think any slight disagreement is going to do a major shift, we saw that on Brexit and the UK got it badly wrong on that.
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