this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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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.

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[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

Great job ignoring the healthy populational growth during socialism in Romania followed by demographic catastrophe since 1990. Let's see what happened to Romanian GDP per capita during socialism and after (Source):

Oh, it turns out that GDP per capita grew sixfold (600%) during communism, and in the ten years following, it fell by 15%. Between 1950 and 1990, this gives an average GDP per capita growth of 4.5% per year. Let's check the data for capitalist Romania:

That's a growth of 250% over 34 years, or a meager 2.7% yearly growth. And that's without taking into account that the number of people has actually dropped since 1990 and it was growing between 1950 and 1990. Damn, not looking so good for the capitalist European model, is it?

You're being dishonest by cherrypicking year 2000, the 1990s in Romania were horrifying due to the debt given by the IMF (western-aligned organization) in order to crush the welfare state in Romania and adopt austerity policy as I discussed. You cherrypicked the year 2000 because that's more or less when the super high inflation of the 1990s started to balance, and you're talking in Euros and not in the local currency because exchange rates were astonishingly low due to currency devaluation. Let's see how well Romania fared in the 1990s during capitalism!

From 5% yearly inflation during communism to 250% during capitalism. This is EXACTLY what I mean by the European betrayal: Romanians were promised wealth comparable to western Europe, and instead were met with deindustrialization, destruction of welfare, horrifying levels of inflation, and sudden unimaginable unemployment after half a century without unemployment. It's literally western-funded loans in the 1980s that started to crash the Romanian economy. You cherrypick two convenient dates, ignore the millions of lives lost and emigrated, and say "look, more Euro is better" ignoring that people literally have to flee the country due to the terrible economy. As of today, Bulgaria and Romania are the two EU countries with highest poverty rates, 30% and 28% respectively. You could also directly ask the population, most of whom support communism and Ceaucescu and claim that life was better during socialism. They also poll saying it was a safer country and less corrupt. Tell me again how Europe hasn't betrayed those countries.

If you also wanna discuss Spain that's wonderful, I happen to be a Spaniard. I have seen nothing in my life but economic downturn, stagnation, reductions of real wages, and housing becoming increasingly unaffordable. Let's go to the Spanish National Institute of Statistics to check the consumption per person:

So, the 20% poorest in Spain used to spend 4612€ per year in 2006. By 2023 it went up to 5443€... but inflation in this period was 38.7%, meaning that to maintain equal consumption capability they should be spending 6396€. Real expenditure, hence, has dropped by 15% for the poorest 20%.

Running the numbers for the following 20% poorest, who spent 7220€ in 2006, they should spend 10014€ to maintain consumer power, but it's only risen to 9009€, so a 10% reduction in purchase power.

For the following 20%, meaning the 20% of people with the earnings closest to the mean (10% below and 10% above) it's gone from 9551 to 12122, it should have gone to 13247€ per year, so an 8% reduction in purchase power for the average Spaniard over the past 20 years.

Now explain me how relevant your "average salary increases in Spain" are if the mean Spaniard has suffered not just stagnation. but a progressive worsening of purchase power. Tell me again how fucking wonderful this European model is.

[–] Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

My argument is that the shit that these countries go and have gone through is mostly self inflicted. 90s Romania was insanely corrupt with an "everyone for themselves" attitude like you wouldn't believe. I was there so I know. People would give bribes even to the local pool to go in without paying a normal fare. Even the priests took bribes. The guy that was chosen as the first president was a former communist elite and he went to town on fucking the country over and people rioted over it. The poverty and suffering was fully internally manufactured.

People nostalgic for the communist system are idiots. Looking at the data economically it might not look bad, but there were extreme supply issues, famine and the authoritarian regime were in full swing in the final years and were the catalist for the fall of the whole system. The years leading up to that is when Romanians learned to survive by any means necessary and infused the society with the corruption that led to the experience of the 90s.

2000s is when people finally had enough and started aspiring to the European model and things started to turn around. You can totally see it on the GDP graph that you showed, 90s was not really capitalistic, it was wild oligarchy west where the only people with any opportunity were former communist elites with money and influence to create their local mafias. Those mafias continued to permate the society in some places to this day.

My argument is that overall the EU has been a net benefit for Romania. Now if you want to get into how capitalism as a whole is not great, especially for the lower classes, then sure, we can agree on that. But this is not what betrayed Romania, Romanians betrayed Romania.

[–] Hexadecimalkink@lemmy.ml -1 points 6 hours ago

Blame the victim