- Fico, though, wasn't speaking just for people in his own country. Rather, he was giving voice to those across Central and Eastern Europe who have long wondered why Nutella doesn't taste as chocolatey at home as it does in Germany, for example, or why the cola isn't as full-bodied and the washing powder doesn't work as well.
He was speaking for 103 million EU citizens who for years have been forced to make due with second-rate versions of brand-name products. Not only that, but questionable studies have even claimed to show that Eastern European consumers prefer the mediocre goods to the real thing. The Polish newspaper Gazeta Prawna has referred to the phenomenon as "grocery racism."
It's surprising to me that they're cheaping out on Nutella. I mean, the spendy part is the hazelnuts... and qualitatively, most people would argue the difference between "good nutella" and "bad nutella" is how much sugar is in it. There was a similar article in the Wall Street Journal this morning talking about how every individual country in the EU has a bunch of barriers to trade based on standards. Wanna sell that Polish plumbing fixture in Germany? Test it for impurities to the tune of $70k each. Germans wanna sell that plumbing fixture in Germany? It's fine, it's domestic. I have absolutely no idea of Poland has lower standards for, say, detergent than Germany does. I do know that if Poland's standards were higher than German standards, the Germans probably wouldn't sell in Poland.
It's interesting, then, that such a sentiment is being expressed in a German newspaper, in English. Are there any others ways such an attitude is affecting Eastern Europe? Worse quality electronics being imported or something similar?
Shitty electronics are more ubiquitous. There was only one bpa-free blender in rather large shop, other products looked, smelled and felt like toxic. The bananas lately have a blue hue and taste a little strange, less like banana and more like stiff rot. Apples are a disgrace. I avoid imported polish, Dutch apples. After completing marathon you get a sack with some fruits. The Apple I got still had a layer of wax and was rotten inside. I avoid plastic bags but the ones in Spain and Italy feel and sound different. Clothing seams here are fraying on the shelf and everything costs 20-50% more than in Germany or Italy or UK. All home chemistry is more expensive in Romania and Baltics, so I used knockoffs until lately. The fresh smell helps a bit. Glad we still have local produce, but it is becoming harder to compete since Polish stuff is cheaper for average income consumer and there are hardly any alternatives to most imported stuff
Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?
In the US, Gray market goods are exceedingly common. B&H Photo Video will actually give you a choice of buying gray market goods on their website. Fundamentally, this is a company buying stuff out of one market and selling it in another. My wife asked me why on earth you could buy a DVD on Amazon in the United States that won't play on a DVD player bought on Amazon in the United States. I had to say "because the consumer electronics industry and the entertainment industry colluded to support windowing at the direct expense of consumers worldwide." What's really stupid is these sorts of policies tend to punish the unresourceful. I had a region-free DVD player in college. It even had an HD15 out so I could plug it into my 100lb 3-eyed monster. You didn't need much of an Internet to buy DVD players out of China, even back when Clinton was president.
Do you know if that holds true for other Eastern European countries? Could it be because of the import taxes in Poland? I'm not trying to oppose you here. I find the situation appalling but would like to know more before I say something.It was cheaper for me to buy a bunch of computer parts in Germany and get back than getting them locally, so there's that. Same goes for used cars. Some of the medications are a lot (I'm talking up to 70% in my case) cheaper when bought online from the Czech Republic, but it doesn't hold in general.
I haven't lived over there for more than a decade, but I purchased all my electronics and musical gear outside Hungary to avoid paying a 50% - 500% markup. The Apple laptop I bought visiting my family in Seattle was $1500. In Hungary it would have been $3500. The bass guitar I had made for me in Dublin was 1200EUR. It was cheaper for me and my girlfriend to fly to Dublin for the weekend, pay for and pick up the guitar, and fly home to Budapest, than it was for me to get a similar instrument in Hungary. At every level, this played out the same way for electronics and "finished" goods. But I bought all my produce, meat, sparkling water, and other foodstuffs directly from local farmers at the markets, as I walked home from work each day. Lunch meat, cheese, sausage, beer, fruit and vegetables... everything I ate was pretty much local. Dunno what it is like today, but I hear it is just as expensive as western europe for everything, now.