The Guardian: Hungary is worse for the EU than Brexit
Timothy Garton Ash, a historian, political writer, and columnist of The Guardian, says Hungary and Poland are blackmailing the EU over the rule of law, and their staying in the EU could be worse than Britain leaving.
According to The Guardian’s columnist, the new relationship between the EU and Britain, as well as Brexit’s influence will only be seen clearly after at least 5 or 10 years. Regarding the EU’s future, another question is whether the Scots will want to break up with England and rejoin the European Union. However, Ash claims that the EU does not talk that much about the topic of Brexit anymore as the attention shifted towards “other enormous crises”. It has to put through the new budget and recovery fund that Hungary and Poland threatened by veto, holding the rest of the EU to ransom “to further weaken the proposed rule of law conditionality on those funds.”
The Guardian columnist poses the question of whether democratic Britain leaving or undemocratic Hungary staying is more dangerous for the future of the EU.
He says that, compared to what Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime ministers of Hungary and Poland, are doing to their partners in the EU, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher looks like “a gentle Europhile.” In comparison to Britain that was a major net contributor to the EU budget, Hungary and Poland are major net beneficiaries of it. The budget and the recovery fund together could contribute more than 6% of Hungary’s GDP – and still, the two countries, in his opinion, refuse to accept some minimal rule of law conditions that are essential to maintaining the democracy and shared legal order of the EU.
Ash says that with the veto, Hungary and Poland are basically refusing to let Germany and the Netherlands make transfers to southern Eurozone countries that were hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, such as Italy and Spain, unless the EU keeps letting them use great amounts of money, without constraints – supporting, for example, Orbán’s “increasingly undemocratic regime”, as well as his family and friends.
The Guardian columnist calls the ruling parties of the two countries populist, xenophobic, and nationalist, who will continue to do however they please, supported by EU money, if the “blackmailing” over the rule of law succeeds.
Read alsoForeign minister: Hungary ‘won’ in EU budget debate
Source: Guardian
6 Comments
Who cares what the presstitutes at the Daily Garbage can liner “Guardian” think? Almost ALL media are propaganda outlets NOT centers for impartial journalism. Hungary is certainly one of the most free members of the European Union at this time. If the toilet paper the Guardian, want to talk about failed democracies they should look at the UK, Germany France to start with.
Agreed, Greece was in the exact same sink hole Hungary was in 1989, no excuse, now look where Greece is.
‘The Guardian’, if you really dig, is just another branch funded by the Open society, SURPRISE, owned and mismanaged by Soros(which means nothing in Hungarian), or Schwartz(‘Black’ his real family name), the evil emperor, Darth’s boss.
The Guardian was founded in Manchester in 1821 and is funded by The Scott Trust, established in 1936. Nothing to do with Soros or the Open Society, despite what ‘the usual suspects (the loony brigade that often post comments here) say.
When are liberals going to accept, that not everyone shares their ideas? Many people in Hungary are against liberalism, and you know what? They have the right to it, just like liberals to be liberals. Stop making statements, dear Guardian journalist, or you make look yourself a fool. The Hungarian democracy is absolutely fine, thank you, and Hungary indeed is by far providing more freedom, than for example the saviour of the world (as they love to paint themselves), the Netherlands.
The Netherlands a saviour? So the left wing Rutte government got rid of referendum option (even though it is the purest from of democracy=the will of the people) by eliminating the law that gives this option legitimacy. Reason? The referendum in 2005, June 1st that rejected the EU constitutional plan.
In 2018 both the assembly and senate voted to repeal the referendum law. How convenient is that? Secondly, mayors in the Netherlands are not elected directly, as the people vote for a Municipal Council and the government appoints a chairman (mayor) to oversee this council. Permit me please to laugh….
In the meantime, as the 2016 Global Peace Index shows, Hungary is one of the world’s most peaceful countries, placed 19th out of 163. The Guardian is an overtly biased , fact manipulating, distortion-laden rag. As far as Timothy is concerned, ha claims to be a historian but he is a political commentator disguised as an unbiased academic, which all historians strive to be : fair and balanced.
The Netherlands , the bastion of democracy? Not quite . the left wing Rutte government got rid of referendum option (even though it is the purest form of democracy=the will of the people) =the will of the people, by eliminating the law that gives this option legitimacy. Reason? The referendum in 2005, June 1st that rejected the EU constitutional plan. In 2018 both the assembly and senate voted to repeal the referendum law. How convenient is that? Secondly, mayors in the Netherlands are not elected directly, as the people vote for a Municipal Council and the government appoints a chairman (mayor) to oversee this council. Permit me please to laugh…. In the meantime, as the 2016 Global Peace Index shows, Hungary is one of the world’s most peaceful countries, placed 19th out of 163. The Guardian is an overtly biased , fact manipulating, distortion-laden rag. As far as Timothy is concerned, ha claims to be a historian but he is a political commentator disguised as an unbiased academic, which all historians strive to be : fair and balanced.