>Portugal and Spain are going to be taken over by gdp/person by Czech republic and Poland. Very poor countries in 90s.
The Eastern block countries had their little economic miracle by having their monopoly board reset thanks to the fall of the USSR and all the communist regimes in Europe which caused insane levels of poverty in the 90s, especially amongst the old age workers, before things could get better.
Spain and Portugal and any other EU country can't and don't want to have such a hard reset with a decade of poverty and bankruptcies, since every country is now about building wealth, not destroying it, all about maintaining the status quo and the generational wealth. You'll see, it will be the same in Czechia in ~30 years when the current gen of well-off young workers retires and the economic miracle growth slows down and start shafting the younger generations who will face high property prices and little job prospects like Spain and Portugal today, and you'll probably also vote to keep your wealth instead of going through another reset like in the 90s'.
> Spain has amazing weather, could be europe tech capital if they only could get their taxes and labor laws in order.
That amazing weather is their own "Dutch disease" meaning the economy is far too dependent on tourism and getting wealthy people from abroad to buy properties there, not invest in creating new jobs.
Also, personally I don't find Spanish weather too amazing. Summers are far too hot outside the beachfront areas to be pleasant to live there. Not everyone loves scorching hot sunt and 35+ Celsius outside for months needing to seek shelter at indoor AC.
It is already kind of happening, properties are through the roof in Czech republic. Mainly big cities, wages relatively low. Europe overtaxes low and middle income people. Wants them to foot the bill for the retirees. No realistic retirement reforms in sight. It will only get worse until the countries collapse like Greece and need to reinvent themselves. It will be slow and then sudden. And people will lok everywhere else, than their own voting actions to find the culprit. No one will tell them, that they voted wrong for 40 years and now they need to deal with it.
The Eastern block countries had their little economic miracle by having their monopoly board reset thanks to the fall of the USSR and all the communist regimes in Europe which caused insane levels of poverty in the 90s, especially amongst the old age workers, before things could get better.
Spain and Portugal and any other EU country can't and don't want to have such a hard reset with a decade of poverty and bankruptcies, since every country is now about building wealth, not destroying it, all about maintaining the status quo and the generational wealth. You'll see, it will be the same in Czechia in ~30 years when the current gen of well-off young workers retires and the economic miracle growth slows down and start shafting the younger generations who will face high property prices and little job prospects like Spain and Portugal today, and you'll probably also vote to keep your wealth instead of going through another reset like in the 90s'.
> Spain has amazing weather, could be europe tech capital if they only could get their taxes and labor laws in order.
That amazing weather is their own "Dutch disease" meaning the economy is far too dependent on tourism and getting wealthy people from abroad to buy properties there, not invest in creating new jobs.
Also, personally I don't find Spanish weather too amazing. Summers are far too hot outside the beachfront areas to be pleasant to live there. Not everyone loves scorching hot sunt and 35+ Celsius outside for months needing to seek shelter at indoor AC.