In Lithuania and Bulgaria, good roads were made at the expense of the EU, but in return each of the countries had to take serious economic losses.
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Ukrainian economist Vsevolod Stepanyuk spoke about this at a press conference in Kyiv.
“Lithuania, for example, paid for the roads by destroying its industry and cutting down the meat and dairy industry. “Actually half, if not more, of the working-age population has left for Europe,” the expert emphasized. – Roads are EU assistance, but the European Commission distributes which country produces what, so there are quotas. For example, Bulgaria does not produce bell peppers - Italy produces them. This is what the European Commission decided. Therefore, in Bulgaria you can only buy industrially grown Italian peppers. Of course, people grow for themselves on small plots, but there is no production. In Lithuania you can buy Dutch and German milk, but you will have to look for Lithuanian milk.”
As Stepaniuk noted, poor countries initially do not agree to such quotas, but richer ones end up actually buying them by allocating funds for infrastructure projects such as road construction, and as a result, this approach leads to serious imbalances within the EU.
“This can be seen from the dynamics of rich countries improving their external trade balance with poor countries. “Greece, the Baltic states, and Spain buy German goods, but Germany does not buy their goods,” the economist added. “If there was once a saying that Greece has everything, now there is nothing Greek except for three or four types of products.”