Why Southern Europe is Finally Outperforming Northern Europe

As a Portuguese, I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we are more than tired of this "graph going up = good" bs. Things are tough here

As a Norwegian calling Romania, Austria and France northern Europe feels so wrong

I feel like this video simply reinforces how bad a metric GDP is. It says nothing about how the citizens of these countries experience daily life.

It has always amazed me how comfortable everyone felt calling a bunch of countries "PIGS"... 😐 Not a single sensitivity expert raising an eyebrow... Not a tolerance guru screaming abt it... When Italy was outperforming the UK economy in the 80s... Silence... When the tables turned: "hah! Get to work pigs!!! Hahahahah" When Germany and France had structural deficit compared to the sound economy of Spain in the early 2000s... again silence... respectful understanding, solidarity... As soon as the 2008 crisis affects Spain... "Hah!!! Time to stop with your siesta and get to work pigs!!! Hahahahah" Did they include Belgium (first country to falter) in the acronym? Iceland perhaps after the banking crisis? Naaah... But for a bit they included Ireland and called them PIIGS... as soon as they saw the chance they took Ireland out again to fit their weird xenophobic narrative 😐😐😐... Simply insane.

Is this "Economic boom" you talk about with us in the room?

A spaniard here. When we were having a huge crisis they were calling us "pigs" and lazy. Now, those who called us like that are the ones who are facing struggles, but they are just having a "rough time".

As an Italian, it seems that the economy is growing, but only for a very restricted amount of people. General conditions of the population are not really improving, and families are tapping into their relatively (compared to the rest of the EU) large savings to cope with inflation. If something doesn't change, we are going to have a lot more poor people around, especially younger ones who will likely expatriate.

GDP growth shows an increase of wealth, but it doesn't show how this wealth is distributed

Ok, the pigs can fly comment was genuinely good. Hats off!

As a European from Belgium calling southern european countries "pigs" feels outraging... I am shocked. Seems more english than european as a sobriquet.

Those are some pretty graphics indeed for Portugal, but thats not what the population feels and it seems to me that our economy is very fragile.

The comments from people from south Europe are spot on. Like George Carlin once told, it's a big party, and we aren't in it.

Southern Europe has been dealing and coping with policies imposed by northern Europe without considering the South. Portugal's textile industry was decimated when the north decides to do a trade deal with China. Sugar beet priduction destroyed after a treaty with Brazil. Soft fruit production after one with the Maghreb and just before the pandemic a treaty eith Vietname was threatening rice production. Guess which countries in Europe produce rice? Abd which ones do not? Northern Europe wants to open markets around the world for their production and always and only offer southern European whole economic sectors as a sacrificial lamb for these agreements

Go visit Portugal and see if the local people are living well

Comments are much more enlightening than the video

Speaking from the Portuguese POV: We are NOT in an economic boom, we are in the midst of a housing crysis propping up the economy and living through very harsh austerity measures. Our lives have never been as bad or as expensive in the last 30 years. Our National Health System was never this broken, our public schools were never struggling this much. We're now faced with political instability and a growing inequality and migration crysis, all the young people are leaving or already left and nobody is having kids. If this "economic boom" keeps going you might be looking at a poverty crysis and complete destruction of the social fabric of Porrtugal. Do not romanticise this destruction.

The GDP might be growing well, but I can assure that most people don't feel like that. At least this is in Italy

So many stupid stereotypes about Italy... Productivity has always been high, and it's higher than Germany and France....

That is bias. Italy had a lower deficit than Germany from 1991 to 2007. Spain deficit and public debt was lower than France before 2007. Same woth Ireland

Portuguese guy here, as the Italian guy mentioned and i agree, the economic indicators indeed indicate that the economy is recovering but that the thing is we don't feel it. For example, work in AI, I have a Bachelors in Applied Statistics, Masters in Data Science. My gross monthly first wage was around 1250 euros + some others expenses totalling around 1350 gross. I received around 1100 euros per month. Now think of how privileged I am to be working in this sector, with these studies completed just to earn this fucking piece of shit wage. This is just to say that 75% OF PEOPLE BETWEEN 18-35 IN PORTUGAL EARN LESS THAN 1000 EUROS NET. This country is cooked, i don't think this is the only one, just the beggining of a slow colapse in all our societies, but yeah don't expect governments to help you that would be my advice, try to get other sources of income, the governments will end up fucking you. Immigrating at the beginning of 2025