[waihtis]

Worth remembering EU funding is collected from the nations that participate. In other words, our tax money is paid into the money pool, application consultants eat 10-30% of it and then it gets paid back to those who can afford to pay consultants six-figure sums at minimum. EU bureacrats can pat each other in the back for "creating inspiring and fantastic things", per your words.

Altogether a fantastic system. /s

[scrollaway]

Sounds to me like you just have an axe to grind and don’t really know what you’re talking about; just a strong desire to complain.

It’s not how solutions get built. But I say this from a bed of privilege — it’s true that I have a much better shot at fixing this system than most people in Europe, due to living in brussels.

I’m working on it. We can only do so much.

[waihtis]

Feel free to refute anything I said instead of going into ad hominems.

[scrollaway]

It's not ad hominem; it's a fact: You sound like you just have an axe to grind and you're not adding much to the discussion beyond large scale vague complaints nobody can do anything about.

I'm not sure how the onus is on me to refute anything beyond that. I've added plenty to the discussion upthread.

[waihtis]

My critique is having a largely inefficient middleman (EU) in distributing funds, and that it would likely be much more effective and transparent to have, say, business grants handled by the local governments. You did not address this at all, rather talked about some alternative EU-centric funding models.

The fact that you are not even considering that dismantling some of the inefficient central planning could help is rather concerning, but perhaps such is the way of life in Brussels. In that case I only wish you enjoy it while it lasts, since the EU is very rapidly becoming a largely obsolete player in the global economy.