wages are lower there, so is the cost of living

The lower cost of living does not compensate for the lower wages: the purchasing power parity was still lower than in the west. Except that, recently, Czechia was ahead of Portugal in PPP even though at market exchange rates Portugal had the higher GDP per capita.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman