More EU insanity

Back in the 1990s, I thought the European Union was a sensible, pragmatic way of dealing with the challenges of economic globalism, but my naive view soon changed when it went on a crazy expansion drive in the early 2000s.

Instead of being a trading block between a select group of western European countries with a similar level of economic development, it's now become a massive and unworkable mish-mash of vastly different countries with major disparities in wealth and welfare levels.

The problems in trying to integrate countries with big differences in income levels have come in sharp focus in Spain, which has been had been hit particularly hard by the recent global recession.

Despite unemployment running at a staggering 17 percent following the collapse of its recent building boom, Spain still has large numbers of unemployed migrant workers from Eastern Europe. For example, there are estimated to be at least 70, 000 unemployed workers from Romania who are still in the country. This is in spite of the fact that the unemployment rate in Romania is about 5.5 percent - only a third of what it is in Spain.

The most likely reason why unemployed Romanians are unwilling to return home isn't hard to find. As a Romanian expat points out:

"...the Spanish unemployment benefits are higher than a Romanian salary, so it's better for them to stay here in Spain than go home to Romania."

Nor has the Spanish government had much success in encouraging unemployed migrant workers from Latin America to return home.

So far only 4,000 migrants have taken up a government offer of returning home for three years in exchange for financial handouts.

I don't know whose been the main drivers behind Spain's recent immigration boom, but it seems likely middle class Spanish taxpayers will be ones paying for most of its negative externalities.