European Union economic (0)

European Union economic
9th May 1951, six Western - Europe countries (Belgium, Italy , Luxembourg, Netherlands , France and Germany ) signed a treaty to run their heavy industries – coal and steel – under a common management. From this economic cooperation agreement, European Union has grown up. For today , the aim of this union has made 180º turn but the reason why more and more countries are joining it is still same – to rise the economy .
So how does it work ? European Union is functioning like an independent country . It collects taxes to reach its objectives. Taxes are collected mainly from member countries GDP (1,1% of countries budget ) but as well the import duties on good bought into EU. Also, every member country is paying 0,1%-0,33% of their VAT ( value added tax). It is the way how EU gets its budget which is about € 120 billion per year . This money is spent mainly to improve agriculture (direct aid, export refunds, storage , rural development and other ) but also to improve less prosperous regions by building up infrastructure and supporting companies with different kinds of grants. EU is also the largest aid donor in the world. For example EU has supported Georgia’s ambitions to get closer to the EU between 1992-2009 with € 865 million.
Unfortunately, everything is not so black and white and there are also negative aspects. Biggest problem at the moment in the EU is countries dept - Greece in the first place . They took more loans that they could pay back and now, the country is in big crisis . If it increases, it will be a serious threat for all EU countries because we have common economy and Greece is using Euro (usually, the countries which are in crisis like that will devalue money, but because Greece is using Euro, it is impossible). That means - if Greece will bankrupt, it will bring crisis for all the Europe . So in EU, the countries have to pay for others mistakes... It has even been predicted that 4 EU countries would be bankrupt before 2013 year.
Also a big problem for new Europe countries is one of the EU fundamental right “free movement of labour , goods and capital”. As a result of it, the most skilled and mobile workers are going from East to West to take advantage of higher benefits and wages . For example, from Estonia many doctors have gone to Finland where the salary is three times bigger, but at the same time, there are not enough doctors in Estonia.
The second bad thing for new member countries in this rule is free movement of goods. One way, it is very good that people can buy goods with better prices, because there would be no duties. In the other hand , it's bad for local companies, who must compete with whole Europe and at the same time they have to adopt the new rules (ecological, health protection at the working places etc) what usually need big investments (cleaning equipment , infrastructure).