toddy:

Sorry for the delay - too busy

I did not mean Euro was helping Spain, but the EU, making our exports cheaper and imports more expensive - stimulating internal markets, improving european producers' sales.

In spite of this difference, I think our positions are getting closer:

It is true that we are the cheapest/one of tha cheaper work forces in Europe (due to the lower cost of living, or, what is the same, a favourable peseta/euro parity).

The germans do not need 50.000 workers, they need many more. In the recent days I have seen that amount as the number of computing experts/workers that Germany will need in the next ¿5? years. What you have to add is that the rest of the countries in the UE and the USA need similar amounts too (USA a higher number, I suppose).

It is very true that emigrant workforce from Eastern countries and the possibility to inverst in those countries, by then members of the EU is a serious menace for spanish workers.

But, although there may always be national gov.'s pressures to multinational companies whose home offices are in their territory to fire people somewhere else, many times they follow their "maximize profit rule" and fire the most expensive/less productive ones, so I think that the main problem is going to be for the most expensive countries' labour force - Why do you think unemployment is increasing in Germany, while reducing in Spain?

About federaization, as you will know, there are many different opinions - even in the same country (i.e. Spain). About that tax: I think the EU needs more resources to develope their policies, but I'd rather reduce agricultural, coal, ..., subsides than set a new tax, no matter the low rate it would have. It could be a .5% more in ¿VAT?.

Maybe the language would be in an equal's level (considering spanih as a whole, not a crowd of dialects spoken the way each one wants), but the rest of the relations wouldn't be as equals. How could them be with a neighbour 20 times as big in extension? Triple, four times as much in incomes per person (only because of a wrong exchange rate, very healthy for us)? With such an army? With ...

Again, we would be your followers, just as the british were going to be before they re-discovered Europe a couple of years ago.