Just noticed this dead post I wrote on the European Internet Project blog…thought I’d collate it under here…

I really wish i hadn’t missed the talk at Reboot from Dragos Novac on the collaborative business opportunities in Europe. Did anyone take notes? I think he probably touched on some pretty key points there – as the EU, we’ve got a really interesting blend of experience, skills coupled with a difference in economic ‘weight’…Skype famously has Estonian development base, but I can’t off the top of my head think of any other famous examples – anyone?

This combination should make for really powerful startups – financing from the old countries can bootstrap their money and utilise better value and high quality skills from partnering with people/orgs from the new EU entrants. Or is that naive? Or condescending?

From my understanding, an underlying fear of economic ‘migrants’ from newly embraced Eastern EU countries that could (are?) taking jobs from ‘native employees’ scuppered the EU constitution referendums, particularly in France. But that’s an incredibly myopic view, isn’t it? We’ve got, in the EU, an economic inbalance +economic/cultural connection that could be our greatest asset. I’m a naive optimist, and see globalisation/labour migration as a strong point, but if people were really scared about losing their jobs, shouldn’t they be more worried about the ‘threat’ of China and see the economic connections between old and new Europe as a key strength in fighting that?

Also, just an uneducated thought – traditionally, labour would ‘migrate’ to the affluent areas, and over time, this would have a balancing effect (usually upwards?) on wage levels etc. Now that we can work and connect together through skype/web/etc. that will require less physical shifting, at least not permanently. Will this manifest in a non-transfer of wage levels over time, so the economic imbalances that we see now between old/new EU countries won’t change? Like I said, an idle thought – just trying to kick-start some conversations.