this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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The EU Is Letting Hungary and Poland Erode Democracy (foreignpolicy.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah, I'd never voluntarily become a politician ;)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I'm from Poland and agree fully with the title. There needs to be more that EU can do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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.