The fronts have hardened in the dispute over the rule of law and the EU budget. Brussels is already talking about a “systemic crisis”, and “nuclear options” are being considered. The situation is serious – but not only because of Hungary and Poland.
The two right-wing nationalist EU countries have found an ally: Slovenia. A week ago, its Prime Minister Jansa congratulated US President Trump on his supposed re-election; now he is jumping in with Hungarian Prime Minister Orban.
Orban, in turn, is massively expanding the dispute. He claims that the real issue is not about the rule of law, but about migration. The intention is to cut the money of those EU countries that are against accepting refugees. Investor G. Soros is said to be behind this – as always when Orban has gone astray.
We are dealing here with a nasty mixture of untruthful, anti-Semitic and right-wing populist claims. In Orban’s words, everything that former Commission President Juncker had to put up with before the 2019 European elections is coming back to life.
However, it would be too easy to blame only Orban for this “systemic crisis” and immediately withdraw the “nuclear option” – i.e. the withdrawal of voting rights for Hungary. Brussels and Berlin are also partly to blame, having suppressed and put off the dispute for years.
And in addition to the three “rule-of-law deniers” Hungary, Poland and Slovenia, there are four other countries that almost caused the EU to fail this year. We are talking about the “Frugal four”, who have resisted the new Corona reconstruction fund.
With their resistance, the four, i.e. Denmark, Austria and Sweden, led by the Netherlands, almost blew the EU summit in July. France’s head of state, Macron, first had to burst his collar before the “Frugal” finally agreed to engage in serious negotiations.
And now it is the Netherlands, in turn, which is rejecting any concessions in the dispute over the rule of law. With this, the right-wing liberal Prime Minister Rutte of the current EU Council presidency, Chancellor Merkel, once again makes life difficult.
For Merkel would, if she could, be only too happy to return to the German Presidency’s original proposal. The original proposal had flushed the rule-of-law mechanism so softly that not even Orban was able to counter it…
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) The original post is (in German) here
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Published at lostineu.eu
