> EU wanted Romaina as a supplier of agricultural goods (and exported labor?)
That is BS. EU never dictated Romania what industries to develop, as Romania is not a planned economy. Private enterprise decides what to create and build, just like in every other free country of the world.
Might I educate you that life just does not work that way.
Japan is a free country yet it had an unambiguous policy to industrialize and produce export goods as a government policy. Which has brought a lot of fruit, but if they didn't have one, Japan might have looked more like Philippines today.
Ditto South Korea whose chaebols (such as Samsung, LG, etc) were created by a government decree with "assigned moguls" to lead them.
Not to mention China which is pouring huge amount of effort not just into infrastructure but also industrial capacity.
I'm also quite confident that post-war France and Germany had programs to keep and develop their industrial capacity.
In this regard, not having a policy and letting private enterprises build whatever they want (and can) using their own money is a policy of itself.
> not having a policy and letting private enterprises build whatever they want (and can) using their own money is a policy of itself
It's called capitalism. And freedom.
But my point was: EU did NOT prevent member countries from investing and growing into whatever direction they want. No purely agrarian economies, no "labor exporters" (unless that's what they wanted, of course).
No, its not. What you are describing is called lack of governance. The western wold has entire industries spawned by government projects one way or another. Either by means of research or outright subsidies.
> EU did NOT prevent member countries from investing and growing into whatever direction they want
Yeah it did. The reason you and your brigade comrade cry over not seeing “factories” around cities is because eu regulation means using standards on par with the rest of the eu. This means the barrier to entry in various manufacturing industries is extremely high. Basically romania is forced to perpetually take eu funding to develop industries, often subsidising those of germany and other eu countries. Instead of starting small and iterating from there machinery used in romania needs to meet the same quality standards as those in richer countries. Surely you understand the issue here.
That is BS. EU never dictated Romania what industries to develop, as Romania is not a planned economy. Private enterprise decides what to create and build, just like in every other free country of the world.