The EU thread

[garbon]

You don't have to purchase everything you see in ads.

You don't have to bitching so much, bitch. Was your alcohol-flavored sweet sparkling grape juice that bad or what?

Who said I was going to purchase everything? Furthermore, based on ads? 

But then garbonites must be garbonites, I guess.

PS: Besides, ads mentioned a tasting event festival, to lure people in.

Oh, of course. You are that übermensch immune to ads.

[Duque de Bragança]

You don't have to purchase everything you see in ads.

Oh, of course. You are that übermensch immune to ads.

Make up your mind, bitch.

[garbon]

[Sheilbh]

From a Hungarian journalist - looks like the Commission and Hungary have reached a deal to unlock most of the frozen EU spending in Hungary. Subject to political approval at the Council:

Katalin Halmai
@eublogo
According to various sources, the @EU_Commission & the Hungarian government have reached a conditional agreement on the judicial reform that would allow the release of cohesion funds due to #Hungary in 2021-2027. The deal still has to be approved at political level, @nepszava writes 2/1
The final agreement would unlock €13 billion out of 22 billion. The release of the 6.3bln blocked in the #RuleOfLaw procedure and the 2.5bln frozen for violations of fundamental rights is subject to further conditions, but the #Orban government is in no hurry to meet them 2/2

[Tamas]

[Tamas]

I don't even need to know the details to know Orban won this one then. There is NO way he'd agree to anything restricting his absolute powers in any meaningful ways, and if he is not curtailed the EU funds will continue to be used to further cement and maintain his grip on the country. Way to go EU, financing a Russian agent among your ranks.

[Zanza]

I hope someone in the Council vetoes this.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I hope someone in the Council vetoes this.

More likely they're trying to figure out how to repeat this on EU wide scale.

[Zanza]

I hope someone in the Council vetoes this.

More likely they're trying to figure out how to repeat this on EU wide scale.

I guess it is just your knee-jerk anti-EU stance, but that does not even make any sense here. Neither removing non-existent sanctions nor establishing an authoritarian regime on an EU-wide scale is something people try to figure out...

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I guess it is just your knee-jerk anti-EU stance,

Nah, that's me being cynical and not overly enamoured with people who have too much power for their own good.

You put way too much trust in politicians. Those people have a lot of power and play around with a lot of money. You don't ascend to that level if you have no desire for power and money. We also know that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

That Hungary's slide towards autocracy needs to be countered: obviously. That it's not easy: obviously.
But that doesn't mean that the commission and EP aren't also sliding towards authoritarianism in their own way.

All of that is rather different from being knee-jerk anti-EU.

[Tamas]

You don't ascend to that level if you have no desire for power and money

Indeed. This I have learned through some family members' time in local council politics. They only needed one ruthless power-hungry bastard (such as the mayor) to poison the whole thing and see several decent people chased out and those who stayed see their health ruined as their opposition to individual policies countered with vicious personal attacks and a desire to destroy them politically (for the magnificent goal of ruling small town politics).

I can only imagine what must be going on behind the scenes when there is actual meaningful power to be gained. But I am sure anyone who doesn't turn into a vicious cynical bastard despite whatever intentions they started with, gets eaten alive.

[Zanza]

I feel sorry for you two having such a negative view of other humans. Must be really depressing. 

[Josquius]

I feel sorry for you two having such a negative view of other humans. Must be really depressing. 

Not humans. Politicians.

[Jacob]

Not humans. Politicians.

What a profoundly anti-democratic attitude.

[Sheilbh]

There's been lots of reports form human rights groups of how migrants are handled in the Med, with a lot of allegations against the Greek government especially. A report on one incident by the NYT (with footage) which is incredibly grim:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/world/europe/greece-migrants-abandoned.html?smid=url-share

Greece Says It Doesn't Ditch Migrants at Sea. It Was Caught in the Act.
Video evidence shows asylum seekers, among them young children, being rounded up, taken to sea and abandoned on a raft by the Greek Coast Guard.

The head of Frontex (awarded honours by the Greek government) resigned last year - https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-border-agency-fabrice-leggeri-resigns-watchdog-probe-findings-released-misconduct/ - and has been replaced so hopefully there'll be some pressure on this.

I've mentioned it before but I feel like there needs to be more concern/coverage about some of what's going on in Greece right now. They're the country with the biggest fall in Europe in media freedom indexes in recent years (more than Hungary or Poland). It feels like a lot of the restrictions on media, clampdowns on NGOs (particularly those working with migrants) and the repeated evidenced reports of pushbacks and worse have been happening without much attention from the rest of Europe.

There's an election tomorrow and while Syriza have narrowed the gap it still looks far more likely that the ND government will be re-elected.