Finland had a great educational system, that pushed them to the top of the PISA world ranking, changed it with a new "progressive" one, still got good scores the very next year because of pure inertia and became the darling of the Left worldwide. Right now their PISA scores are tanking, they barely made top 10 in 2018, ahead of Poland, and are behind all developed Asian countries, plus Estonia and Canada. That should explain why no one harps about how great Finnish educational innovations are lately.
Still on the subject of Romania, no, it's not the mythical EU funds that fuel this growth, because the funds are tiny compared to the size of the economy and 2/3 end up not being spent at all because extremely strict anti-corruption measures that make it a massive pain in the ass to try and access EU funds. Government debt is at 35% of GDP, growth rate is constantly among best 3 in EU, constantly over 5%, unemployment under 4%, wages grow between 5-7% annually, inflation is under 3%, criminality is way lower than the West etc. Is that bad? And I think Romania could do even better if not for EU's idiotic trade policy and regulation bullshit.
It may not be EU's funds that fuel our growth (although they help), however not sure if you're aware but the growth you're talking of happened after we entered EU, not before.
Before EU we were at the same level as Moldova. Our growth is perfectly correlated with our EU membership. If you want to see what would have happened without EU, look at Moldova.
And it's easy to see why. In spite of regulations, compared to the 90s we have a market to sell our products to. We no longer build tractors that nobody wants. And we exported our poverty, the poor and uneducated becoming seasonal workers, that no longer need a passport and visa to travel and that then send money home.
Also the anti-corruption policies you mentioned have been fueled by EU membership too, things moving under foreign pressure. Speaking of which it's not actually anti-corruption measures that prevent us from accessing EU's funds but our government's incompetence.
We disagree. I think Romania would be the shithole that it was in the 90s if it wasn't for EU and its "trade policy and regulation bullshit". The arrangement was and continues to be mutually beneficial.
> If you want to see what would have happened without EU, look at Moldova.
Heck - if you want to see what would have happened without EU, look all around: Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia. Serbia and Ukraine were miles ahead of us until we joined the EU.
I am getting impression that you are implying that living in Serbia is terrible, or at least worse than living in Romania.
I live in Belgrade and I like it here. I visited Bucharest 2 years ago for EuroBSDcon and I liked it as well. Belgrade hosted EuroBSDcon 2 years earlier. I haven't noticed much difference between developed and historical parts of Belgrade and Bucharest. I noticed Bucharest's decayed parts are in much worse state than Belgrade's.
Belgrade is not representative of all of Serbia and you should get out into the provinces. As someone who spends pretty much each summer cycling in Romania and Serbia, I agree with the OP: in so much of Serbia south of Belgrade, the tertiary roads (which were the pride of Yugoslavia) are often no longer maintained and municipal buildings are decaying. In Romania, conversely, a lot of provincial roads have been upgraded and municipal infrastructure renovated thanks to EU funds.
I got the impression, not that Serbia was terrible, but that the advantage Serbia has over Bulgaria is much less marked than it was earlier.
I don't know your region at all, but for instance mid 80's Računari was a regular magazine, while all I can find for the same period in Bulgaria is an Isotimpex calendar:
(of course, ghits are a lousy way of judging, but since we have many EE voices in this thread I figure being wrong on the internet is a good way to get better information.)
I generally agree. Back in 80's, Romanian and Bulgarian construction workers lined up near "Park of Vuk" in Belgrade in hope to get daily construction site gig for cash. They aren't there since 90's when shit hit the fan.
Best wine I ever bought in supermarket was in Bucharest, not Bordeaux. Tastiest dinner I ever had in a restourant was in Sofia, not Paris. Best nightclubbing in Belgrade, not Berlin.
Belgrade is pretty nice man; I didn't mean to imply Serbia is terrible - just that it has fallen behind. It used to be that Serbia was the neighbour we looked up to; nowadays... it just doesn't seem better anymore.
Also - Bucharest is terrible, compared with its potential, because we've had extremely shitty mayors. But if things change now (and it's not out of the question!), it can really take off. The GDP of the region is already way higher than Belgrade, I believe (but, the natural setting is way worse, that much is true).
Growth happened before EU accession in 2007 and it was faster and more robust as it's pretty obvious from the graph I linked. What triggered our economic expansion was reforms that began when we almost defaulted, around the time the first non-Communist government (Democratic Convention in 1996) took power. We stopped printing money to cover huge budget deficits and got rid of hyperinflation. We privatized, simplified and decreased taxation, opened the country to foreign investment, stopped in large part protectionist measures, massively deregulated the economy etc. From a closed economic model inspired by North Korea, we now have an economy that's more free than most of Europe, including our regional competitors like Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Russia or Turkey. UE big government career bureaucrats that can't even "fix" their own failing countries, had nothing to teach us and have no merit in what we have achieved.
https://github.com/rktjmp/lush.nvim#readme