Last years we’ve definitely been a bit trapped in a very progressive ideology, but I think that the economic growth many countries experienced (especially first day EU countries) speaks for its succes. After all it remains a complex system, you could drive a day from Austria to every wind direction and you’ll find completely different languages and cultures yet due to being part of the EU we efficiently work together. Just take pre-EU times as a example, we used to kill each other.
The truth is that Poland is getting weaker. We already had a stronger army as a soviet republic. We currently spend more on military than we do on healthcare and education. How is that beneficial to the society? I surely know it's beneficial for US arms industry.
We also had a higher population, heavy industry, much stronger agriculture. The level of living is obviously higher now but it's due to the technological development of the whole world.
Currently we're just a cheap labor force, nothing more.
