[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.