Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blasted his European allies Thursday for what he portrayed as the continent’s slow, fragmented and inadequate response to Russia’s invasion nearly four years ago and its continued international aggression.
Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Zelenskyy listed a litany of grievances and criticisms of Europe that he said have left Ukraine at the mercy of Russian President Vladimir Putin amid an ongoing U.S. push for a peace settlement.
Literally since it is an independent country. Ukraine was, already well before 2022, the poorest country in Europe. The EU-exported model of neoliberalism, austerity and privatization led to catastrophic results for the Ukrainian economy, leading to drug abuse, crime, lack of healthcare, malnutrition, violence and unemployment, resulting in net population losses of above 10 million between 1991 and 2022, counting increased mortality, mass emigration and lack of births. Europe literally hollowed out Ukraine and made it desperately poor.
The same EU exported model that made Poland, Romania and Bulgaria as rich as they are today. But also what made Hungary or Greece what they are today, right?
Turns out corruption and internal politics have more influence than anything, but the EU has been a net gain overall for any country that actually gave it an honest try.
Romania and Bulgaria are rich? I’m Spanish, a country by no means rich, and we have tons of Romanian immigrants because the working conditions there are extremely hard, and they suffered similar issues:
This is especially true for Bulgaria, they lost like a freaking third of the population since 1990 (from 9mn to 6.4mn in 2024). By what metric are they rich? GDP per capita? How about access to housing, to healthcare, to quality education, the ability to stay in rural areas with non-decrepit infrastructure…
Regarding Poland, the country may be richer as a whole (again, using GDP per capita as metric), but are the people faring better? Look at the share of national income by the bottom 50% of the people: