EU links future funding on rule of law, Hungary & Poland threaten budget veto

[Sheilbh]

Then blackmail them with the regular budget.  Give them a choice of agreeing to rule of law or the entire EU budget, including all that beautiful free money, gets cut off.

Actually that's what they're doing. The EU budget is a seven year budget and the latest (also reflecting Brexit) is due for approval. Until then new projects and I think new spending aren't really possible. It's also been a fairly ambitious budget round (especially for Macron).

Poland and Hungary are vetoing the normal budget because it's being linked to rule of law conditionality.

[Admiral Yi]

Your other option is to hopel Piss gets taken down.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

maybe the EU will now do something about the political prisoners in Spain too...

Oh? Has rule of law been restored to Poland and Hungary already? If so then maybe it is time to start another project. Good job EU 10/10.

that would be the same project, not a different one.
All at once, or nobody.

[Valmy]

that would be the same project, not a different one.
All at once, or nobody.

That is not how politics works. You just cannot take on everybody at once. You have only so much political capital to burn.

[Sheilbh]

Joint statement by Warsaw and Budapest on this - which is excellent trolling but not totally inaccurate.

Basically they point out that the rule of law conditionality isn't in the treaties and is based on ambiguous terms without clear criteria for sanctions or legal procedures for the application of these sanctions. They say that if the EU wants to establish a link between its budget and rule of law, then the treaty should be followed - starting with an intergovernmental conference to negotiate amendments to the treaties. It's clearly mainly trolling but - they kind of have a point.

It does also get to an issue that the EU is kind of reaching the limit of what it can do (especially with common debt and financial transfers) based on the current treaties. Legally I'm sure a solution could be found, but in terms of legitimacy it feels like we're at the very edge of applying creative legal solutions to avoid having to re-open the treaties after the trauma of the European Constitution (FWIW I think this was also a big part of what led to Brexit).

[Sheilbh]

Not sure how accurate this'll be but the latest reports I've read are that one solution being mooted is to approve the link between rule of law and funding, but to guarantee that it won't be invoked against Poland or Hungary. So basically the Growth and Stability Pact but this time for fundamental values.

Also given the timing it's likely that the December European Council meeting will have to work something out on this to get the coronavirus recovery fund (and wider EU budget in place), plus Brexit, plus the Greeks are pushing a very hardline (with French backing) for measures against Turkey. Which seems like a pretty big agenda

Edit: It's also really striking how much grimmer the atmosphere is than following the July coronavirus budget breakthrough - also just as an aside the ECB have started raising concerns about coronavirus spending re-linking the bank-sovereign nexus which is not ideal and shows why the recovery fund matters so much.

[Valmy]

Russia and Turkey are Europe's enemies and should be opposed with a hardline. Kind of sad it has come to this but it is what it is.

Both Hungary and Poland seem to reject the entire European project but want to stay in anyway, that confuses me.

[Monoriu]

The EU should stand for Earth's Union.  It should aim to be a single market for all, with total free trade, no tariffs, a single set of trade rules, and a single currency.  Anybody who wants those can join. 

[Valmy]

Not even the glowing balls of light in Europe are that enlightened.

[Sheilbh]

Russia and Turkey are Europe's enemies and should be opposed with a hardline. Kind of sad it has come to this but it is what it is.

Both Hungary and Poland seem to reject the entire European project but want to stay in anyway, that confuses me.

Turkey's still in the customs union and formally still negotiating accessions, though obviously not much is happening on that front. Macron wants Turkey expelled from the customs union for recent actions - though it is kind of striking and depressing how much Macron seems influenced by personal attacks (see also how easy he was to needle for Salvini).

On this subject in general I saw this map posted by Carl Bildt (who noted the trends go back further than the period covered), and it makes me wonder how much this is the cause of some of these issues - especially as Italian politics seems to be moving in a similar direction as CEE:

[grumbler]

The EU should stand for Earth's Union.  It should aim to be a single market for all, with total free trade, no tariffs, a single set of trade rules, and a single currency.  Anybody who wants those can join.

You'd have a hard time convincing governments to give up their monetary power.  Single currencies only work if there is a single political economy across the single currency region.  You really think the Chinese Occupation Government is going to give up its political-economic decision-making to Brussels?

[Monoriu]

The EU should stand for Earth's Union.  It should aim to be a single market for all, with total free trade, no tariffs, a single set of trade rules, and a single currency.  Anybody who wants those can join.

You'd have a hard time convincing governments to give up their monetary power.  Single currencies only work if there is a single political economy across the single currency region.  You really think the Chinese Occupation Government is going to give up its political-economic decision-making to Brussels?

China may not.  But a lot of small countries will want to join.  It is not all or nothing.  Some countries may join the common market first, then consider the single currency later.  Some EU countries still use their own currency. 

[Tamas]

Both Hungary and Poland seem to reject the entire European project but want to stay in anyway, that confuses me.

I know little of the details of Poland but in Hungary, at one hand the massive amounts of EU grants over the last decade directly enabled (or at the very least, made it much easier) to cement in Orban's autocratic power, funding the establishment of the wide network of vassals, and the oligarchs who now control every aspect of the economy and ensure that even if somehow Orban loses an election, the country and its economy remains hostage to him.

More importantly, however, it is only a slight exaggeration that the country is a German assembly plant. I don't think they can afford to put a hard border up with the EU without massive economic setback.

Thirdly, the population is largely pro-EU.  I guess a good portion of them is open to grumble about being restricted in teh freedoms by the EU, but even most of them would not want to leave because the advantages are clear. Luckily, pre-EU times are very much in living memory, and we didn't have an empire we can imagine is still waiting for our benign overlordship outside the EU.

[Zanza]

and we didn't have an empire we can imagine is still waiting for our benign overlordship outside the EU.

[Tamas]

That, sir was not an empire but Hungary proper. 

Besides, nobody thinks leaving the EU could move us back in time to that.