So keep them in EU but take away their veto rights 🤔 Didn’t knew there was an option like that.
Article 7 suspends their voting rights. Requires unanimity of all other EU members.
It’s the closest EU charter allows to evicting a member state. It effectively suspends the state’s membership.
Quite frankly the should have. Orban is a blatantly corrupt Putin lapdog who has been siphoning EU funds for years into his own pocket and that of his cronies.
Hungary used to have a mutual defence pact with PiS-era Poland that scuppered any attempts by the EU to discipline either country. Not that PiS are no longer in power in Poland, hasn’t Fico’s Slovakia stepped into the role?
Nope, because Orban’s party denies the legitimacy of Slovakia as an independent state via their grievance culture over the Treaty of Trianon
Fico and other similar politicians are still great friends with orban. Even the Slovak National Party, which is ironic because they were incredibly anti-hungrian bck in the day. But sharing dream of totalitarian country unites.
I bet Putin would lovento get us back into Russian sphere of influence as well and yet Fico and co. still lick his boots.
Have we ever been that close to taking them? I’m assuming he was warned and informed that next time it will happen.
No, but until now, Poland and Hungary protected each other. Things might change now.
Slovakia and The Netherlands are the new wild cards. We’ll see how things shake out.
Slovakia, I don’t know, but the Netherlands not really. The one party that might want to veto it, while the biggest in parliament, only (“only”) got 20% of the votes. If they get to govern (which is not set in stone yet), they’ll have to do so in a coalition with other parties who would not let that happen.
And Italy, why are we left out? 🤌🤌🤌 Italy is part of the “family” too, with the Nederlands, Slovakia, Hungary… and the UK of course!
The UK isn’t in any EU discussions any more…
My impression of Meloni is that she values the EU?
Edit: not melon lol
She does, she isn’t doing anything like that.
Why not making it simpler, and NOT keeping them in EU? Feels like we wouldn’t miss much.
The source they’re citing is a single person that’s not likely to be impartial.
That doesn’t change that the option is on the table and has been for years. It’s it the EU’s de-facto constitution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_7_of_the_Treaty_on_European_Union
I do know about it. I don’t believe nobody would have covered for Orban.
I guess that depends on what the other leaders said. Even outside EU rules states can exert quite a bit of pressure on other states hence I don’t believe that a small country like Slovakia, despite it’s Russian-friendly government, would dare to become the target of the ire of the countries making up 97% of the EU’s population and 98% of its GDP.
I think there are countries that realize that there are many consequences to Hungary being suspended. For now they can hide behind Hungary which will veto things they disapprove of but doing so publically would get scrutinized. We’ve seen something like this when Netherlands has been blocking new Schengen members on their own for years but in reality Austria (and probably some other countries) was against it too.
Poland would have under PiS, but not anymore. Unless Slovakia steps up, who would? All others see Orban as a criminal, who siphons money off and ruins his country.
Prime suspects would be Slovakia and Austria in this case. My point was slightly different though: this is just one thing where Hungary might have seemed isolated but I’m pretty sure there are other matters where threat of Hungary veto stopped some initiatives before they could be considered in full.
Imagine EU directive making all member states need to recognize same sex civil unions. Hungary would obviously veto it so why would you bother but there’s still Bulgaria, Romania and Poland that could say nothing and hide behind Hungary.
Identifying the breach requires unanimity (excluding the state concerned), but sanctions require only a qualified majority.
Wait, how does this work? Can sanctions be instated without identifying a country as being in breach? Or is unanimity first required, and only after that, the majority can decide what the sanction is?
