In their conclusions, the authors recommend Northern Ireland – which remains relatively poor and heavily reliant on public sector spending and employment – embark on major reforms to improve its residents’ standard of living.
“Even though Ireland has a much higher national income, funding the needs of the people of Northern Ireland in a united Ireland would put huge financial pressure on the people of Ireland, resulting in an immediate major reduction in their living standards,” the report says.
Sounds about as bad as the reunification of (Western) Germany and the GDR, they are still way behind 30+ years later, and the western states are paying the bill to this day, while young people still migrate from east to west, with Berlin as the only real exception.
Yeah, maybe. The GDR was under a whole different economic system, though. I mean, the UK and Ireland are pretty similar.
But I also think that if Ireland were in the UK and the UK were in the EU that probably everyone involved would be better-off – not to mention all those not-UK not-EU British territories, like the Isle of Man and Jersey and Guernsey. Obviously a lot of people who actually live in the British Isles don’t see things the same way, though, so…
But the reunification of Germany was literally ‘alternativlos’ (without alternatives).
This does not say, it was implemented perfectly or even okay. But in the moment of time it happened, I think the great majority of actors really tried to do the right things.
disagree. Gregor Gysi sums it up very nicely at Jung & Naiv: https://youtu.be/lnjqyDnSk4o
It wasn’t so much a reunification, but rather a takeover. East Germany was more or less plundered by West Germans with a lot of capital after the reunification, leading to a stark divide: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1ark1p5/eastwest_germany_divide/
The whole article(and/or the study) does not mention the cost of the current split(border,trade barriers-especially after Brexit, etc.) and how that affects both Irelands daily. And it neither talks about the EU funding Ireland would get for dealing with Northern Ireland - which would be substantial. Based on pre Brexit spending it would be around 5 billion per year, probably more. And it’s very likely that Ireland would be able to leverage a “development program” for additional subsidies from the EU after unification.
The UK is basically alone now-Ireland wouldn’t be alone with a reunification.
