The EU Is Letting Hungary and Poland Erode Democracy
The EU Is Letting Hungary and Poland Erode Democracy
Brussels must take harsher measures against ruling parties in Budapest and Warsaw if it’s serious about upholding democratic norms.
I'm sort of torn on this. I really like the idea of all member states having an equal say on things, but at the same time Hungary and Poland's fairly extreme stance is holding the whole bloc back.
Is there a democratic way to solve this? I'm not aware of one.
The problem is that many decisions require complete consensus, a majority isn't enough. Maybe changing that to, say, 80%, which is still an overwhelming majority, helps with political blackmailing.
I would probably, personally, be in favour of such implementation, but I can also understand that I support it because it aligns with my views. Would I support it if the situation was different? Say EU-wide all-electronic-comms scan for some bs reason, and my country is the only one (or in a tiny minority) objecting it? Most likely not.
Politics is tough. People are tough.
Yeah, I'd never voluntarily become a politician ;)
The unanimity provisions were put in place precisely so that individual nations would not have their sovereignty eroded over time. It is likely that many nations would never have joined the EU without such protections in place.
I don't like this, this merely remove the idea of consensus.
The problem is that a country is causing problems. A consensus of all the other countries to force a decision to the black sheep would be a solution IMO. Or merely giving more power to a justice court of the EU so that member states are actually forced to respect the laws of the EU.
I fear that that would just allow the erosion of democracy to be ignored until it affected 20% of member states at which point the bar would have to be moved again
But since the first emergency covid package we do have a method to withhold that sweet, sweet EU funding, and we have been using it to increasingly good effect. We need to do more of this and more often instead of just threatening.
It does not require a unanimous vote which is why it works. This is literally the only good thing the Dutch PM ever pushed in his entire life (and he probably stood to make some money out of it ...somehow).
While I agree, it somehoe feels dirty. Blackmail through finance will probably always work, but carrying the sentiment from my other comment - I feel like it will backfire at some point, on some other issue.
Yeah, there is a way: Every democratic EU country could join a completely new Union - leaving Poland and Hungary out. And then dissolve the old union.
Meh. That's not a solution. That's a workaround. These never pay out in the long run.