[Swizec]

Oh it’s far more aspirational than real :D

With a tinge of “We work hard like the Germans! We’re not like those other people from the area. Please hire us”.

My understanding is that under Yugoslavia we were the most prosperous region by far. Then the export market collapsed and we realized “Shit, most of our economy is oriented towards former Yugoslavia!” and we started reorienting towards central europe.

But central europe has plenty other even cheaper markets to import from. So that’s been a problem.