Let's be honest: Romanian (and other country) taxpayers contribute loads of money to the EU. Then some entities in that country, namely:
* those well-connected to politicians, or
* those able to push through the red tape of market-warping subsidies such as Horizon2020 using the right intermediary agencies for a cut (yes, it's a huge business!)
are the net recipients.
The money that arrives from the EU is significantly dissolved in nonsense projects (notorious hyper-expensive bicycle paths from-nowhere to-nowhere) and bureaucratic overhead. Equating the ingress EU money to taxpayers' benefits is too hopeful.
>> The money that arrives from the EU is significantly dissolved in nonsense projects (notorious hyper-expensive bicycle paths from-nowhere to-nowhere)
Why do you think this is nonsense? I was born in one of the poorer regions in Germany. When I was back on holiday I was positively suprised that one of those EU-funded bicycle lanes has been built there. It mostly connects villages (nowhere-to-nowhere so to speak) and the road has been a death-trap for cyclists for as long as I can think of. Since this lane was established the number of car-bicycle accidents has been reduced significantly.
From the outside these kinds of investment can seem like nonsense, but they are usually granted with close cooperation on the municipal level. For the people living in that region, it can be very beneficial...
I don't know about Germany; my understanding is it's quite a specific country in many ways (rich and orderly).
But at least in Romania (this thread), in my home country CZ, and I suspect in the rest of East Europe, "close cooperation on the municipal level" is a big part of the problem.
If you're interested, here are a few articles about the veritable EU money embezzlement business of bicycle paths (use Google translate). It runs deep, deep into politics:
Do you think the taxpayers, given a choice, would willingly contribute their tax money to such projects? Hence "nonsense".
Also note these projects often go against the wishes of local residents, and cost participation is ≫0% (EU/gvt subsidizes part of the cost + local municipality pays the rest). Which means, the local taxpayers get fucked over twice. Local politicians and their connected businesses profit.
I don't get it. Is that EU's fault? It's not like EU is saying "hey, here's €100m, build bicycle paths from nowhere to nowhere". It is your local politicians doing this kind of crap.
