The mobility discussion is interesting to me as someone who navigated US immigration.
Moving countries is hard. Not just paperwork hard, but restarting-your-life hard. Credit history, professional networks, understanding how things actually work versus how they officially work.
If the mobility framework makes it meaningfully easier for skilled workers to move between India and Europe, that's significant. Not because of labor economics, but because talented people having more options is generally good for everyone.
The H1B system in the US has created a lot of anxiety and frustration. Competition for that talent pool seems healthy.
But no, you can make 3-4x in the US. That’s not an exaggeration. And before someone says ‘free healthcare’, big-tech employers in the US provide pretty nice insurance for employees that caps maximum out of pocket expenses to about a week of your salary.
EU (except Zurich and London) tech salaries have sort of stagnated to a point that you make about the same in Bangalore, and spend significantly more.
Actual formal engineering jobs in Switzerland come with benefits gold plating better than full federal government employees in the USA. And they’re almost as hard to sack.
Nobody gives out positions like that easily to non geniuses. And even for more ordinary very smart candidates, there are enough of them to have a few hoops to jump through.
In silicon valley, you can not afford to underpay good engineers, as they'll move across the street and get a job that pays double after a year.
In most other places, this ecosystem does not exist because it is ridiculously difficult to start and operate a company unless you are part of some conglomerate.
Those "decent salaries" have caused a lot of trouble in the US. They are probably not that good for the society, even if they attract foreign talent.
There is not much difference in labor share of GDP between the US and the EU. People who work for living get a similar share of the value they create in both blocks on the average (maybe a bit less in the US), but it's less evenly distributed in the US.
Top 10% earners are now responsible for ~50% of consumer spending. That doesn't mean billionaires and capitalists, but upper middle class professionals and other high earners. The economy is great on the average, but most people don't feel it.
I don't disagree, as in an abstract sense inequality is bad for society.
Try to understand why the US has high tech salaries though. It is because the last 40 years have made it pretty easy and convenient to start companies.
Hence, good employees always have great options or can just start their own companies.
> But no, you can make 3-4x in the US. That’s not an exaggeration
Eh, we'll see how long that lasts as the transition from financial capital to global pariah progresses. It's quite possible that our labor is extremely overvalued.
Right now it relies on silicon valley's ability to churn out unicorns again and again.
That part seems to be taking an ugly turn nowadays by a bunch of military AI/drone swarm/etc focused startups. I'm guessing that eventually after the Apple/Google model of making money is dead, you'll have to work for Skynet if you want to make money.
Free education and childcare doesn’t come close to shrinking a 300k USD gap in total compensation. Real number in my case, I looked into moving to Berlin last year.
> Not to mention the fascism problem of course.
Agreed.
The US is going in a terrible direction with this. I hope Europe has learned from history and won’t follow.
The soft power stuff has been canned. That has not generated good will, but that act pales compared to kidnapping, threats to invade various places and the destabilising effects of chaos as a leadership strategy.
I believe the damage is done and there will be no going back to the old ways.
This time around I'm sensing a real change in attitude. People in Europe are sick and tired of all the US bullshit that's been going on for far too long. It's not just the lunatic in the White House. It's the whole system that's being rejected. The endless greed. The bigotry. The war on everything.
Peaceful cooperation and coexistence, that's what we want. I'm for my part quite happy and optimistic about the deal with India and I hope more regions will follow soon.
It's an MoU to "discuss" mobility with no commitment to actually decide anything: "[a]dopted as a memorandum of understanding in parallel with the finalisation of the FTA, offers an excellent opportunity for us to cooperate on facilitating labour mobility, supporting skills development and capacity building, and working on skills and qualification frameworks" [0].
Immigration remains under the purview of individual EU member states. And immigration/mobility is out of scope of the actual EU-India FTA deal and the EU-India Defense Pact deal.
Notice how this entire thread got derailed by low karma and newish accounts dogwhistling immigration instead of discussing how the deal expanded European (and India) industrial and chemical exports to India (and Europe) by giving them a tariff rate under that which is Chinese transshipped products via ASEAN get thus making European (and Indian) capital goods cost effective and now includes India as part of ReArm Europe [1] - the EU's defense fund for European and Ukrainian rearmament [2].
Who needs Russian backed farmer disinfo networks [3] when you have anonymous "software engineer" and "OSINT" accounts stirring $hit to try and undermine the EU-India relationship [4]. That said, the deal will go through because the right businesses and unions were mollified over the past 2-3 years building up to this.
The rub here is "skilled workers". Just after Brexit, the Boris Johnson Tory government adjusted immigration rules for "skilled" workers, and caused a civilisation-altering number of people (now known as the "Boriswave") to immigrate to the country, mostly from India, Africa, and other less developed areas. It's now known that almost every pay level and skill (or lack thereof) of job was eligible under the new rules, with some countries of origin, like Zimbabwe, having up to 10 dependents per worker on average IIRC. The same story has played out in the US with the "skilled" H1B visa scheme. People have lost all trust in governments to architect immigration laws in the interest of the natives, rather than giving big business carte blanche to import their own replacement workforce who will do any available job for the national minimum wage.
> talented people having more options is generally good for everyone
While I support free markets, that argument sounds a bit like the basis of the old 'trickle-down economics' and similar theories such as global free trade: Help the wealthy and the benefits will 'trickle down' to everyone else.
It turns out that if you help the wealthy, then the wealthy benefit. I know that doesn't sound like a surprising result when it's said that way, but the point is that the rest is a convenient fiction the wealthy tell themselves and politicians tell the public, in order to serve themselves.
In the US for example, those policies have led to historic increases in wealth for the few, and stagnated wages for the many. On the other hand, in less well off economies such as China and Brazil, the policies led to historic numbers lifted out of poverty - far more than anything in history. So that's a great result that we absolutely should not ignore or put a stop to. I support free trade.
But if the policy isn't specifically designed to benefit workers in the US, for example, if they are left to get theoretical second or third order theoretical benefits, it won't work for them. It's not 'generally good for everyone' unless it's made that way.
I don't understand what your point is when comparing how similar policies helped general population prosperity in less-well-off countries to the USA you say only benefiting the wealthy.
What should I be getting out of your argument? Asking in good faith.
For example, that there's more to it than that simple rule, or that once a certain level of general population prosperity is reached it stops working, or that impoverished populations have a culture that better benefits from such policies... ?
This is excellent, the duopoly discussions of the world mostly center around US and China and EU feels increasingly excluded while the rest of the world appears as footnote for good or bad reasons. I do hope this means there is enough dynamism in global trade.
The current challenge is that China has so much industrial overcapacity that it possibly can sell goods at near , sometimes even below mfg costs which makes it difficult if not impossible for India or other country made goods to even think of competing in the middle part of the value chain. Yet, it is the only hope for India to climb at least slightly even if they can never hope to get to the frontier of mfg. Chinese goals now are to amortize their existing mfg investments in any way possible but they still find it difficult to spur domestic consumption
Europe and the EU, Japan are vassal states curently occupied by the US. China, Russia, India are largely independent states. I am sure once Europe is not occupied, it will be talked about more.
I’m surprised, so it seems like most tariffs are falling towards zero on all products except agriculture and cars below 17,000$ in the coming few years.
Especially cars, India has had insane tariffs on luxury cars and motorcycles that will disappear, which is interesting. On the face this seems like a good deal for India as India can probably export much more than EU can to India except for a few sectors like Automobiles and Chips, but who knows, I assume EU officials seem to think the gains in a few high tech sectors are enough to offset the cheap goods on all other sectors.
All automotive goods in India below the $17,800 pricepoint are "Made in India", not China.
Chinese manufacturers got hounded out and as a result the PRC tried [1] and failed [0] to weaponize the WTO against India [0] for India trying to subsidize GreenTech driven industrialization.
Chinese manufacturers are allowed to enter India, but on terms similar to what the PRC used when Western, Japanese, and Korean players began entering the Chinese market - something which German policymakers even pointed out [2].
Canada is embarking on a trade agreement with India and collectively our greatest fear is the immigration issue. Canada's immigration is already quite lop-sided.
Immigration is absolutely a part of this deal. Interestingly, EU official communications and western media barely mention this, but the Indian government's official communication tout a "new framework for mobility" that will "open up new opportunities in the European Union for Indian students, workers, and professionals." [1]
The quote is “Alongside this ambitious FTA, we are also creating a new framework for mobility. This will open up new opportunities in the European Union for Indian students, workers, and professionals.”
I read it as he is working on a separate deal besides the aforementioned FTA.
India gets a metric fuckload of money back in remittances every year. Debatable if that's actually worth the brain drain, but then there's also the angle of having your young people learn from the rest of the world and return with new skills. I lean more towards the remittances though.
They get less Indians in their country, while giving their problems to other countries to deal with. Western leaders are insane to think flooding their already resource constrained and overcrowded countries with thousands of 3rd worlders is a good thing for their nation. How are housing, health care, insurance and other public benefit costs now? Would competing against many more people in your territory in the zero-sum conflict for these resources be a good thing for the average European? Of course not. Just like it's not good for the average American or Canadian.
Additionally, diluting the native population's power in democratic politics where ethnic blocks equal more votes and more power, it is doubly bad for the current citizens of Western nations.
Leaving aside the fact that this is a single picture of a chart with no source provided (or sample size, or methodology)... that's eighth on that chart, not fifth, and just says "immigration" with no further detail.
Canada as a whole has been pro immigration for a long time, but our immigration system was broken in recent years, and the most visible consequence of that has been an enormous increase in low skill, low wage Indian workers. A lot of people who have never had issues with immigration policy before have become very anti Indian immigration as a result.
I think there's some particular niche immigration programs (ie. TFW) that have been broken because bad actors are aggressively defrauding the government, but I wouldn't say that Canada's system is broken beyond that.
I'm skeptical that an increase in so called "low skill" workers are even a problem considering that the country is experiencing labour shortages that have contributed to construction costs being so out of whack that building new buildings is unviable.
Now we've "solved" that problem by turning immigration down to zero but that is a kludge and not an actual long term solution to systemic problems.
It's pretty hard be critical of the need for supposed "low skill" immigration when pretty much all of our settler ancestors were penniless dirt farmers.
Questioning immigration policy is not racism. Anti-Indian sentiment in Canada is relatively recent and happened after a decade of mass immigration that is now widely agreed has contributed to a noticeable decline in the quality of life for all.
"Widely agreed" meaning the National Post and other foreign owned conservative press banged the drum on the issue endlessly for years and years and now people are thoughtlessly repeating the talking point.
US immigration policy was explicitly racist from its founding up until the Hart Cellar act of 1965. Assuming that the 2016 election of Donald Trump is your benchmark for when immigration policy became determined by racists again, then the US's immigration policy was non-racist for 51 of the last 251 (and counting) years, or 20% of its history.
Safe to say that the 1990s "End of History" theory has been proven wrong. It may be that the ~1960s-2010s "post-national" political consensus was actually just a historical aberration that is still in the process of being unwound.
You don't understand, and your unwillingness to approach this issue with the nuance it deserves will only drive people towards right-wing extremists. These people are not racists! The federal government increased immigration (largely of TFWs and students) by far too much, and that has put an enormous strain on Canada's housing and job market. Canadians are turning against broken immigration policy, which has naturally become associated with its most visible aspect--the recently arrived, unskilled Indian worker. You must understand the negative sentiment is driven by association with bad government policy, not naive racism towards Indians. Of course, none of this is the fault of individual immigrants or TFWs, but they are part of the problem, because they are symptoms of it.
Racism is a serious allegation. Let's not cry wolf when there is a reasonable explanation here.
No one said "everyone from their country is a bad influence." Indians were viewed as model immigrants in Canada for decades. Again, their good name is being tarred due to bad government policy.
My point is is that if leftists cannot talk about immigration policy in a nuanced way, right-wing extremists (for there are no other kinds of right wingers these days) will be the only game in town, and people who want to talk about immigration policy will therefore be drawn towards them.
Humans see patterns in everything, that's how we work. You can be a naive idealist all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that people will inevitably associate the effects of a bad policy with the policy itself.
> My point is is that if leftists cannot talk about immigration policy in a nuanced way
Does nuance mean agreeing to your framing of a situation? If so, I guess not. That's not what it means to me.
> a naive idealist
Insults aren't helping your case.
> associate the effects of a bad policy with the policy itself.
What are the effects you're referring to here?
> Humans see patterns in everything, that's how we work.
Here's a pattern I see: American-owned propaganda networks take over Canadian news and trying to drum up racist sentiment and lots of people falling for it.
> Canada's immigration is already quite lop-sided.
I don't even understand what "lop-sided" means here.
Would you say that Canada's oil and softwood businesses are lop-sided because we produce and export a lot of it? Or that the groceries' market is lop-sided because we don't produce a lot of it and therefore have to import?
Canada is an importer of people (not only from India) because it can't produce a lot of people. It is not different from groceries.
Is India lacking in variety? It has more languages than Europe.
Variety isn't a bad idea in and of itself. But you're making the mistake of assuming all the people who live inside a particular nation's boundaries are the same.
India as a whole is diverse. Canada is NOT getting immigrants from all of India but rather from 2 states (mostly one). Please learn about the issue first.
The majority of Indian immigrants to Canada are coming from one state, Punjab, so the benefits of diversity within India is not necessarily reflected in the Indians coming to Canada.
Because there are so many Indians around, newly arrived Indians tend to spend most of their time with other Indians, and as a result don't integrate with the rest of society as much as previously waves of immigrants did. Canada is a cultural mosaic, but a certain degree of intermixing and assimilation is necessary, in my opinion, to preserve social and national bonds.
Do you appreciate that, in the wider historical context, this position is an exceptionally radical one? You seem to not understand how there could even exist a difference of opinion on this, but I'm confident that this outlook of humans as being completely fungible, transactional economic units would appear unthinkable to anyone throughout 99% of human history. Just the suggestion that a nation's population should be restocked by swapping it out with another nation's population would be tantamount to treason any time prior to the revolution of the 1960s.
Canadians don't seem to have their priorities straight if they are more concerned about having a few more Indian neighbors than the US threatening to invade.
Ironically, the chart you've pointed out doesn't indicate the raw numbers, just proportions. 30% of immigrants being from India sounds perfectly reasonable. What's the problem?
It is worth adding here that in the years after Covid began, the raw number of immigrants reached record highs, in some years more than doubling the previous (steady) intake rate.
The Netherlands is preventing is trying to prevent hyperscale data centers from being built because they require as much energy is a year as a small city. I can't imagine dismissing the import of a small city's worth of Indians quarterly as trivial.
Switzerland has a free trade deal with India already and has a huge trade surplus (~25B). Free trade with china too and also a big trade surplus of around $20B.
> On mobility, the India-EU FTA provides a facilitative and predictable framework for business mobility covering short-term, temporary and business travel in both directions.
Do you predict short term business travel from India will increase youth unemployment in Europe? Why?
Don’t you think a larger export market for EU products like cars will increase employment in the EU? That would be my prediction.
Immigration is not part of the EU-India Trade Deal [0] nor the EU-India Defense Pact [1].
The only mention of mobility (not even immigration) is a vaguely worded MoU with no commitment of execution [2].
Instead, Europeans should be thankful that India has now reduced tariffs on European engineering and chemical goods to below what Chinese transshippers paid via the India-ASEAN FTA thus giving European manufacturers a much needed export market defended against Chinese overproduction, and that India will now join South Korea and Japan in arming Ukraine and the entire EU as part of ReArm Europe/Readiness2030 [3]. Heck, India has already begun defending Greece [4] and Cyprus [5] against Turkish aggression in the Aegean and investing in European infrastructure development [6].
The only people who would be opposed to the EU-India Trade and Defense Deals are those who want the EU to remain a perpetual junior partner to the US or China. In fact, China has a history of leveraging disinformation [7] to undermine EU-India relations.
Given the pattern of accounts on this thread and how it was derailed by the boogeyman of immigration, there are hallmarks of a spamoflauge operation similar to what the EU-Mercosur deal faced.
Also, individual EU states have always had the final say on immigration policy within their borders.
The agreement also includes "mobility". The EU has plenty of STEM talent. And since many industries are downsizing due to energy and other issues, there's no point to bring more from India, of all places.
Von der Leyen today: "We are signing an agreement on mobility. We will facilitate the movement of students, researchers, seasonal, and highly skilled workers. And this is also why we are launching the first EU legal gateway office in India. It will be a one stop hub to port Indian talent moving to Europe."
That may be an intention, but the deal, as it is, does not cover mobility.
From the BBC article:
> Delhi and Brussels have also agreed on a mobility framework that eases restrictions for professionals to travel between India and the EU in the short term.
The Mobility Work is separate from the deal.
And you know what? Good that it includes it.
One of the major strengths of the US, one that I see as amazing that they are throwing away, is that they were always very capable to attract talent from abroad.
Having more skilled people around is never a bad thing. Only if you believe in a zero-sum economy.
More trade and more talented people generally result in economic growth and technological progress.
> Delhi and Brussels have also agreed on a mobility framework that eases restrictions for professionals to travel between India and the EU in the short term.
This is great news for professionals wishing to move to the EU, and I hope many will use this opportunity.
How are people mistaking what is clearly easier business visas to facilitate short term visits for migration? The EU can't commit to changes on migration because individual countries decide that.
I'm from Europe (a white male, if that matters to you). I have worked with several people from India (off the top of my head: Vimal, Hijas, Os). They were all competent, going above expectations. And not just that, they were very nice to be around. They did bring value and integrated well into our civilized society.
Way to fall-off from being the one source of news everyone in "Anglo" countries in the Third-World used to turn to (and love and respect... however biased the news may have been).
Edit: am trying to access from US, I see a paywall. Good to hear from comments that other countries don't see a paywall.
> US-based visitors to BBC.com will now have to pay $49.99 (£36) a year or $8.99 (£6.50) a month for access to most BBC News stories and features, and to stream the BBC News channel.
Only the US traffic has a paywall, there's none if you visit it from somewhere else. Understandable to charge people who don't pay for it with their taxes in my opinion, especially if you delivery videos and other expensive content for free without ads.
Most of these cuts happened under the previous government, including where they restricted how revenue from BBC World Service can be recycled into its local broadcasting. You'd almost think the Conservatives were trying to get rid of it.
There are another two hundred-odd countries who also do not pay for it with their taxes. The BBC has apparently not seen fit to paywall them. This is a very confusing and inconsistent move.
The other countries most likely don't make up such a big chunk of visits / costs.
FWIW: There's many news sources in the US (Usually regional news papers etc.) that just throw a forbidden or 402 status code right away at anyone not using a US IP.
Huh, viewing from India here - no paywall. BBC can be biased, but it is very useful to know what the British state media thinks. This article is neutral reporting with barely any "analyst opinion" flavor.
Just for clarity: the BBC is not "state media," it's a public broadcaster. This is an important distinction as the UK Government cannot determine its agenda or directly influence its funding.
The BBC will regularly criticise the government, especially when it's a Labour government.
> UK Government cannot determine its agenda or directly influence its funding.
> The BBC will regularly criticise the government
The funding is set for a 10 year cycle, beyond the scope of any individual government specifically to protect the BBC from editorial interference by the government. That’s why it’s a publicly funded broadcaster, not “state media.”
The onus is now on you and the OP to prove your claim that the BBC is state media.
I always thought of Brussels as the city where decisions go to die; that the EU discusses everything, poses for pictures and solves nothing. Then, in less than a month we have the trade deal EU-Mercosur and this one with India.
Maybe the Europeans can actually solve problems, after all.
1.) These trade deals were discussed for 20 years.
2.) Politics always needs discussion of loosy "all people that matter"
3.) EU by definition has a broad definition of "everyone matters". That's why it is lame but that is why it is interesting for countries outside of the EU becoming a member.
4.) EU does get things done. Maybe you don't read the news (where do you live?)
It is funny that it took less time for South Americans to create the Mercosur and for the Pacific countries to create the trans-Pacific partnership than to negotiate any trade deals with the EU.
Of course that's probably not including things that aren't progressing for whatever reason. Otherwise, a lot of this isn't of much interest to someone on another continent.
my first points are about slowiness which is different to "nothing done". The EU has a wide array of free trade agreements.
"Latin American living in Canada."
Probably thats why you dont read about EU laws. Today Commission investigate into Google for breaking the DMA. The DMA itself is a very important piece of law.
My favorite part of this timeline is watching (union) leftists celebrate free trade and gun ownership.
The sad part is that as soon as someone wearing a blue shirt enters office, they will get right in line with whatever the blue shirt says. I saw this with Obama's drone strikes in Syria...
Moderates have always appreciated free trade, including Obama and Clinton, and to a lesser extent Biden. Heck, Republicans going anti-free trade is a relatively recent thing, it used to be moderates liked free trade, and so did the far right, now its just moderates liking on free trade and the far left and right not.
> I saw this with Obama's drone strikes in Syria...
Again, you are mistaking Obama for a far-left liberal when he was basically a moderate with no qualms on intervention. Now that we can compare Obama to a populist who claims to be but is not really a conservative either, I don't think we can claim much.
I'm not talking about the politician, but rather the base of supporters who quickly supported things that would have been trashed if the other team did it.
You are charactituring their supporters just like you are the politicians. There is a wide swatch of opposition to Trump: moderates like me, and far lefties that I don't normally agree with on much. Most of the opposition to Trump are from moderates (most Americans are in the middle somewhere), although the most visible opposition is are the far left activist types (because...well...they specialize in visibility). They weren't protesting tariffs, they are protesting ICE, so really they are pretty ideological consistent.
Party loyalists are moderates, the far left is the one that doesn't turn out to vote when Democrats aren't pursuing their agenda, they were the ones to get on the Bernie train, etc...
If you want to bring facts into this, I have bad news about metaphysical truth.
>The Problem of Priors ruins basically all of science
>Particulars vs Universals
>Your senses are organic chemical reactions that lose reality, then you use different chemical reactions that turn it into logical thought, further simplifying and allowing mistakes.
>Deflationary Theory of Truth is probably the correct one.
I don't need to know about gravity to know the sun will rise tomorrow, I can use my intuition. However, my intuition also says the earth is flat. So take what you will.
You know it's a good deal for the EU and India given that China has been attempting a diplomacy blitz against the deal [0] for [1] years [2] now [3].
Indian DefenseTech and Dual Use technologies vendors can also now participate in ReArm Europe/Readiness2030 [4] (the EU's Defense Modernization fund) as part of the India-EU Defense Pact [5] that was also signed, especially after the French Government identified [6] a Chinese-led disinformation operation against French and Indian DefenseTech which the DGSE reported on with AP [7].
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Edit: Notice how even on HN new accounts are suddenly popping up trying to make a wedge about this deal by dog whistling immigration even though mobility is not mentioned in the draft seen by Reuters and is a power that falls under individual state's sovereignity in the EU.
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Edit 2: Note the subsequent whataboutism that has arisen. A nation trying to conduct disinformation ops against another nation is an offensive action. It's the tip of the iceberg of attempts of foreign interference within France [8]
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Edit 3: Replying here
> I still don't know what 'diplomacy blitz' are you talking about.
The GT is the de facto voice of China's foreign policy, and has consistently viewed the EU-India deal as an attempt to isolate China. Additonally, Table Media (Germany's equivalent of Axios) noted He Lifeng's statements against the EU-India deal dueing Davos 2026, as the EU and India are investigating a compromise on CBAM for Indian exports.
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Edit 4: Unsurprisingly, the entire HN thread has been derailed by immigration.
As to your point [7], no need for China to "spread doubts about the performance of French-made Rafale ", I have at this very moment this book on my desk: Le Pouvoir sans visage: Le complexe militaro-industriel [1], written by a Pierre Marion [2], former head of the SDECE/DGSE in the early '80s, where said Pierre Marion does the same thing, i.e. he heavily criticises the Rafale programme and Dassault (the company and the man himself, Serge Dassault)
> Delhi and Brussels have also agreed on a mobility framework that eases restrictions for professionals to travel between India and the EU in the short term.
That should hopefully help increasing the much needed immigration.
The much needed immigration should rather come from countries with similar society and culture to us Europeans, rather than India. Europe couldn't be more different to India and should remain as it was pre-~2014.
Culturally more similar would be South-America I'd say. Them I wouldn't mind at all.
>The much needed immigration should rather come from countries with similar society and culture to us Europeans, rather than India.
The mass emigration from India is a direct consequence of India's poor wages and living standards. If that was not the case, most people I know (and I myself) wouldn't have emigrated. From what I see[1], the average South American is much better off than the average Indian. Maybe that (and India's huge population) explains why South Americans do not emigrate as much[2] as Indians?
In other words, people from "countries with similar society and culture to us Europeans" may not want to move to Europe. It's all supply and demand at the end of the day
Moving countries is hard. Not just paperwork hard, but restarting-your-life hard. Credit history, professional networks, understanding how things actually work versus how they officially work.
If the mobility framework makes it meaningfully easier for skilled workers to move between India and Europe, that's significant. Not because of labor economics, but because talented people having more options is generally good for everyone.
The H1B system in the US has created a lot of anxiety and frustration. Competition for that talent pool seems healthy.
Might we see a European flowering as the US chokes itself into a regional power?
But no, you can make 3-4x in the US. That’s not an exaggeration. And before someone says ‘free healthcare’, big-tech employers in the US provide pretty nice insurance for employees that caps maximum out of pocket expenses to about a week of your salary.
EU (except Zurich and London) tech salaries have sort of stagnated to a point that you make about the same in Bangalore, and spend significantly more.
Swissre, UBS and many others all have open positions in Spain/Poland/India, not actually in Switzerland
Nobody gives out positions like that easily to non geniuses. And even for more ordinary very smart candidates, there are enough of them to have a few hoops to jump through.
But makes me wonder if EU policies are contributing to wage stagnation.
There had been several high profile cases in the US about wage stagnation, so much that tech companies are a bit wary of this topic.
In silicon valley, you can not afford to underpay good engineers, as they'll move across the street and get a job that pays double after a year.
In most other places, this ecosystem does not exist because it is ridiculously difficult to start and operate a company unless you are part of some conglomerate.
There is not much difference in labor share of GDP between the US and the EU. People who work for living get a similar share of the value they create in both blocks on the average (maybe a bit less in the US), but it's less evenly distributed in the US.
Top 10% earners are now responsible for ~50% of consumer spending. That doesn't mean billionaires and capitalists, but upper middle class professionals and other high earners. The economy is great on the average, but most people don't feel it.
I don't disagree, as in an abstract sense inequality is bad for society.
Try to understand why the US has high tech salaries though. It is because the last 40 years have made it pretty easy and convenient to start companies.
Hence, good employees always have great options or can just start their own companies.
Eh, we'll see how long that lasts as the transition from financial capital to global pariah progresses. It's quite possible that our labor is extremely overvalued.
That part seems to be taking an ugly turn nowadays by a bunch of military AI/drone swarm/etc focused startups. I'm guessing that eventually after the Apple/Google model of making money is dead, you'll have to work for Skynet if you want to make money.
Not to mention the fascism problem of course.
> Not to mention the fascism problem of course.
Agreed.
The US is going in a terrible direction with this. I hope Europe has learned from history and won’t follow.
France was recently an absolute inspiration in this regard.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrlxn4ngdgo
I not talking about average wages, as that has no bearing on whether I would want to live somewhere.
I'll primarily look at what I can make and what my quality of life would be like.
Turns out I can live a pretty comfortable life with EU salary. I could afford a house, car, family. Quality of Life is pretty great.
I am not sure if the extra money in the US would be worth it.
There are hobbies and interests you can pursue with a tech salary in the US that are somewhat out of reach in Europe without generational wealth.
Immigration remains under the purview of individual EU member states. And immigration/mobility is out of scope of the actual EU-India FTA deal and the EU-India Defense Pact deal.
Notice how this entire thread got derailed by low karma and newish accounts dogwhistling immigration instead of discussing how the deal expanded European (and India) industrial and chemical exports to India (and Europe) by giving them a tariff rate under that which is Chinese transshipped products via ASEAN get thus making European (and Indian) capital goods cost effective and now includes India as part of ReArm Europe [1] - the EU's defense fund for European and Ukrainian rearmament [2].
Who needs Russian backed farmer disinfo networks [3] when you have anonymous "software engineer" and "OSINT" accounts stirring $hit to try and undermine the EU-India relationship [4]. That said, the deal will go through because the right businesses and unions were mollified over the past 2-3 years building up to this.
[0] - https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_...
[1] - https://theprint.in/diplomacy/india-eu-sign-security-defence...
[2] - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2025/7695...
[3] - https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2025/12/01/putin-permafr...
[4] - https://www.defense.gouv.fr/desinformation/nos-analyses-froi...
While I support free markets, that argument sounds a bit like the basis of the old 'trickle-down economics' and similar theories such as global free trade: Help the wealthy and the benefits will 'trickle down' to everyone else.
It turns out that if you help the wealthy, then the wealthy benefit. I know that doesn't sound like a surprising result when it's said that way, but the point is that the rest is a convenient fiction the wealthy tell themselves and politicians tell the public, in order to serve themselves.
In the US for example, those policies have led to historic increases in wealth for the few, and stagnated wages for the many. On the other hand, in less well off economies such as China and Brazil, the policies led to historic numbers lifted out of poverty - far more than anything in history. So that's a great result that we absolutely should not ignore or put a stop to. I support free trade.
But if the policy isn't specifically designed to benefit workers in the US, for example, if they are left to get theoretical second or third order theoretical benefits, it won't work for them. It's not 'generally good for everyone' unless it's made that way.
What should I be getting out of your argument? Asking in good faith.
For example, that there's more to it than that simple rule, or that once a certain level of general population prosperity is reached it stops working, or that impoverished populations have a culture that better benefits from such policies... ?
The current challenge is that China has so much industrial overcapacity that it possibly can sell goods at near , sometimes even below mfg costs which makes it difficult if not impossible for India or other country made goods to even think of competing in the middle part of the value chain. Yet, it is the only hope for India to climb at least slightly even if they can never hope to get to the frontier of mfg. Chinese goals now are to amortize their existing mfg investments in any way possible but they still find it difficult to spur domestic consumption
Especially cars, India has had insane tariffs on luxury cars and motorcycles that will disappear, which is interesting. On the face this seems like a good deal for India as India can probably export much more than EU can to India except for a few sectors like Automobiles and Chips, but who knows, I assume EU officials seem to think the gains in a few high tech sectors are enough to offset the cheap goods on all other sectors.
Chinese manufacturers got hounded out and as a result the PRC tried [1] and failed [0] to weaponize the WTO against India [0] for India trying to subsidize GreenTech driven industrialization.
Chinese manufacturers are allowed to enter India, but on terms similar to what the PRC used when Western, Japanese, and Korean players began entering the Chinese market - something which German policymakers even pointed out [2].
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-files-wto-case-aga...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-stops-chinas-reque...
[2] - https://table.media/china/thema-des-tages/indien-weshalb-chi...
In a cost of living crisis, maybe this is seen as a helpful import?
[1] https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl%2F40615%2...
I read it as he is working on a separate deal besides the aforementioned FTA.
2. India has a massive male surplus[1] and they actively look to send them abroad to prevent domestic unrest
[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?lo...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India
Additionally, diluting the native population's power in democratic politics where ethnic blocks equal more votes and more power, it is doubly bad for the current citizens of Western nations.
Citation very much needed. This sounds like _your_ concern that you're trying to launder through projecting onto the rest of the country.
It is one of the top 5 issues for ALL Canadians.
I'm skeptical that an increase in so called "low skill" workers are even a problem considering that the country is experiencing labour shortages that have contributed to construction costs being so out of whack that building new buildings is unviable.
Now we've "solved" that problem by turning immigration down to zero but that is a kludge and not an actual long term solution to systemic problems.
It's pretty hard be critical of the need for supposed "low skill" immigration when pretty much all of our settler ancestors were penniless dirt farmers.
So we just let racists determine national policy now? I wonder how that's working out in the US.
Wild sequence of sentences.
> is now widely agreed has contributed to a noticeable decline in the quality of life for all.
Citation very much needed.
Safe to say that the 1990s "End of History" theory has been proven wrong. It may be that the ~1960s-2010s "post-national" political consensus was actually just a historical aberration that is still in the process of being unwound.
Racism is a serious allegation. Let's not cry wolf when there is a reasonable explanation here.
> will only drive people towards right-wing extremists
The right talks a big game about personal responsibility, but somehow their worst beliefs are always someone else's fault. Funny, that.
> naturally become associated
Now see, that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's _not_ natural or inevitable.
My point is is that if leftists cannot talk about immigration policy in a nuanced way, right-wing extremists (for there are no other kinds of right wingers these days) will be the only game in town, and people who want to talk about immigration policy will therefore be drawn towards them.
Humans see patterns in everything, that's how we work. You can be a naive idealist all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that people will inevitably associate the effects of a bad policy with the policy itself.
Does nuance mean agreeing to your framing of a situation? If so, I guess not. That's not what it means to me.
> a naive idealist
Insults aren't helping your case.
> associate the effects of a bad policy with the policy itself.
What are the effects you're referring to here?
> Humans see patterns in everything, that's how we work.
Here's a pattern I see: American-owned propaganda networks take over Canadian news and trying to drum up racist sentiment and lots of people falling for it.
I don't even understand what "lop-sided" means here.
Would you say that Canada's oil and softwood businesses are lop-sided because we produce and export a lot of it? Or that the groceries' market is lop-sided because we don't produce a lot of it and therefore have to import?
Canada is an importer of people (not only from India) because it can't produce a lot of people. It is not different from groceries.
Variety isn't a bad idea in and of itself. But you're making the mistake of assuming all the people who live inside a particular nation's boundaries are the same.
So does every country that can't grow it's population indefinitely need to import a ton of people? What is the endgame there?
And I thought trade in people as some kind of fungible economic token was out of vogue.
>It is not different from groceries.
Do you appreciate that, in the wider historical context, this position is an exceptionally radical one? You seem to not understand how there could even exist a difference of opinion on this, but I'm confident that this outlook of humans as being completely fungible, transactional economic units would appear unthinkable to anyone throughout 99% of human history. Just the suggestion that a nation's population should be restocked by swapping it out with another nation's population would be tantamount to treason any time prior to the revolution of the 1960s.
The previous Trudeau govt? Absolutely not. He was the prime minister of everyone except Canadians.
Look at this chart for example: https://preview.redd.it/in-the-first-three-months-of-2025-ca...
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2025008...
I remember reading recently that Canada's population actually decreased last year. A quick Google confirms it: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/251217/dq251...
The reduction came from international students and temporary workers' permits expiring. We keep increasing permanent residents.
These are a bit of a legacy thing that countries can't just develop.
India to CH, gold, jewelry, equipment, textiles.
> On mobility, the India-EU FTA provides a facilitative and predictable framework for business mobility covering short-term, temporary and business travel in both directions.
Do you predict short term business travel from India will increase youth unemployment in Europe? Why?
Don’t you think a larger export market for EU products like cars will increase employment in the EU? That would be my prediction.
The only mention of mobility (not even immigration) is a vaguely worded MoU with no commitment of execution [2].
Instead, Europeans should be thankful that India has now reduced tariffs on European engineering and chemical goods to below what Chinese transshippers paid via the India-ASEAN FTA thus giving European manufacturers a much needed export market defended against Chinese overproduction, and that India will now join South Korea and Japan in arming Ukraine and the entire EU as part of ReArm Europe/Readiness2030 [3]. Heck, India has already begun defending Greece [4] and Cyprus [5] against Turkish aggression in the Aegean and investing in European infrastructure development [6].
The only people who would be opposed to the EU-India Trade and Defense Deals are those who want the EU to remain a perpetual junior partner to the US or China. In fact, China has a history of leveraging disinformation [7] to undermine EU-India relations.
Given the pattern of accounts on this thread and how it was derailed by the boogeyman of immigration, there are hallmarks of a spamoflauge operation similar to what the EU-Mercosur deal faced.
Also, individual EU states have always had the final say on immigration policy within their borders.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/details-eu-india-trade-d...
[1] - https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/security-and-defence-eu-and-...
[2] - https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_...
[3] - https://theprint.in/diplomacy/india-eu-sign-security-defence...
[4] - https://geetha.mil.gr/kyklos-synomilion-staff-talks-kai-ypog...
[5] - https://www.gov.cy/proedros-proedria/koini-diakiryxi-gia-tin...
[6] - https://www.lagazzettamarittima.it/2025/10/30/rixi-in-india-...
[7] - https://www.defense.gouv.fr/desinformation/nos-analyses-froi...
I mean, if your problem is unemployment, leaning how to read would go a long way.
[0] "India, EU seal landmark mobility pact; Indian professionals, students set to benefit" 27 Jan 2026 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/study/india-eu-seal...
The only mention is an MoU to discuss mobility with no commitment of execution. Additionally, immigration remains the mandate of EU member states.
Stop misrepresenting articles using the specter of immigration.
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/2016230504605852133
From the BBC article:
> Delhi and Brussels have also agreed on a mobility framework that eases restrictions for professionals to travel between India and the EU in the short term.
The Mobility Work is separate from the deal.
And you know what? Good that it includes it.
One of the major strengths of the US, one that I see as amazing that they are throwing away, is that they were always very capable to attract talent from abroad.
Having more skilled people around is never a bad thing. Only if you believe in a zero-sum economy.
More trade and more talented people generally result in economic growth and technological progress.
This is great news for professionals wishing to move to the EU, and I hope many will use this opportunity.
Way to fall-off from being the one source of news everyone in "Anglo" countries in the Third-World used to turn to (and love and respect... however biased the news may have been).
Edit: am trying to access from US, I see a paywall. Good to hear from comments that other countries don't see a paywall.
Only the US traffic has a paywall, there's none if you visit it from somewhere else. Understandable to charge people who don't pay for it with their taxes in my opinion, especially if you delivery videos and other expensive content for free without ads.
I would have expected Britain to realize this and continue funding it.
From: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2vgkn7w10o
The other countries most likely don't make up such a big chunk of visits / costs.
FWIW: There's many news sources in the US (Usually regional news papers etc.) that just throw a forbidden or 402 status code right away at anyone not using a US IP.
The BBC will regularly criticise the government, especially when it's a Labour government.
Not paying the Licence Fee is a criminal offence.
None of these make the BBC "state media."
> UK Government cannot determine its agenda or directly influence its funding.
> The BBC will regularly criticise the government
The funding is set for a 10 year cycle, beyond the scope of any individual government specifically to protect the BBC from editorial interference by the government. That’s why it’s a publicly funded broadcaster, not “state media.”
The onus is now on you and the OP to prove your claim that the BBC is state media.
UK-EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU%E2%80%93UK_Trade_and_Cooper...
I always thought of Brussels as the city where decisions go to die; that the EU discusses everything, poses for pictures and solves nothing. Then, in less than a month we have the trade deal EU-Mercosur and this one with India.
Maybe the Europeans can actually solve problems, after all.
I expect something similar with the India Deal, there is always some form of Veto in the EU that makes it very hard to act as a unit.
4.) EU does get things done. Maybe you don't read the news (where do you live?)
It is funny that it took less time for South Americans to create the Mercosur and for the Pacific countries to create the trans-Pacific partnership than to negotiate any trade deals with the EU.
> where do you live?
Latin American living in Canada.
Of course that's probably not including things that aren't progressing for whatever reason. Otherwise, a lot of this isn't of much interest to someone on another continent.
"Latin American living in Canada." Probably thats why you dont read about EU laws. Today Commission investigate into Google for breaking the DMA. The DMA itself is a very important piece of law.
The sad part is that as soon as someone wearing a blue shirt enters office, they will get right in line with whatever the blue shirt says. I saw this with Obama's drone strikes in Syria...
> I saw this with Obama's drone strikes in Syria...
Again, you are mistaking Obama for a far-left liberal when he was basically a moderate with no qualms on intervention. Now that we can compare Obama to a populist who claims to be but is not really a conservative either, I don't think we can claim much.
I admittedly am part of a trade organization, so I am quite friendly to both teams. Call what I see intuition. I usually place these numbers at:
>Total Loyalists: 30-40%
>Ideological Believers: 30-40%
>Ambitious Opportunists: 30%
Party loyalists are moderates, the far left is the one that doesn't turn out to vote when Democrats aren't pursuing their agenda, they were the ones to get on the Bernie train, etc...
> Call what I see intuition.
Sure, it is obviously not fact driven.
>The Problem of Priors ruins basically all of science
>Particulars vs Universals
>Your senses are organic chemical reactions that lose reality, then you use different chemical reactions that turn it into logical thought, further simplifying and allowing mistakes.
>Deflationary Theory of Truth is probably the correct one.
I don't need to know about gravity to know the sun will rise tomorrow, I can use my intuition. However, my intuition also says the earth is flat. So take what you will.
Everyone is just going to move on and ignore the silly tariffs.
You know it's a good deal for the EU and India given that China has been attempting a diplomacy blitz against the deal [0] for [1] years [2] now [3].
Indian DefenseTech and Dual Use technologies vendors can also now participate in ReArm Europe/Readiness2030 [4] (the EU's Defense Modernization fund) as part of the India-EU Defense Pact [5] that was also signed, especially after the French Government identified [6] a Chinese-led disinformation operation against French and Indian DefenseTech which the DGSE reported on with AP [7].
---
Edit: Notice how even on HN new accounts are suddenly popping up trying to make a wedge about this deal by dog whistling immigration even though mobility is not mentioned in the draft seen by Reuters and is a power that falls under individual state's sovereignity in the EU.
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Edit 2: Note the subsequent whataboutism that has arisen. A nation trying to conduct disinformation ops against another nation is an offensive action. It's the tip of the iceberg of attempts of foreign interference within France [8]
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Edit 3: Replying here
> I still don't know what 'diplomacy blitz' are you talking about.
The GT is the de facto voice of China's foreign policy, and has consistently viewed the EU-India deal as an attempt to isolate China. Additonally, Table Media (Germany's equivalent of Axios) noted He Lifeng's statements against the EU-India deal dueing Davos 2026, as the EU and India are investigating a compromise on CBAM for Indian exports.
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Edit 4: Unsurprisingly, the entire HN thread has been derailed by immigration.
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[0] - https://table.media/china/thema-des-tages/indien-weshalb-chi...
[1] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1222983.shtml
[2] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1222993.shtml
[3] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202010/1205230.shtml
[4] - https://theprint.in/diplomacy/india-eu-sign-security-defence...
[5] - https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/security-and-defence-eu-and-...
[6] - https://www.defense.gouv.fr/desinformation/nos-analyses-froi...
[7] - https://apnews.com/article/france-china-pakistan-india-defen...
[8] - https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2024/07/02/deux-espio...
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_...
[1] https://www.amazon.fr/Pouvoir-sans-visage-complexe-militaro-...)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Marion
The comment is so absurdly out of step that it's clearly just trying to stir the issue.
That should hopefully help increasing the much needed immigration.
Culturally more similar would be South-America I'd say. Them I wouldn't mind at all.
The mass emigration from India is a direct consequence of India's poor wages and living standards. If that was not the case, most people I know (and I myself) wouldn't have emigrated. From what I see[1], the average South American is much better off than the average Indian. Maybe that (and India's huge population) explains why South Americans do not emigrate as much[2] as Indians?
In other words, people from "countries with similar society and culture to us Europeans" may not want to move to Europe. It's all supply and demand at the end of the day
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migra...
Edit: The BBC article is wrong, as can be seen by the draft reported by Reuters [0]
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/details-eu-india-trade-d...