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Dodge blackmail

2020-12-06T01:34:38.782Z


The EU succeeds in activating a mechanism to circumvent the veto of Poland and Hungary without concessions The President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen. The European Commission launched on Wednesday the strategy to avoid the blackmail of the governments of Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki, which have blocked the EU budgetary framework for the period 2021-2027 and the European Recovery Fund for weeks. Brussels has warned that it has alternatives that "can be applied quickly" to star


The President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen.

The European Commission launched on Wednesday the strategy to avoid the blackmail of the governments of Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki, which have blocked the EU budgetary framework for the period 2021-2027 and the European Recovery Fund for weeks.

Brussels has warned that it has alternatives that "can be applied quickly" to start the fund without counting on Hungary or Poland.

The threat, just one week before the European summit in which Budapest and Warsaw are expected to stop using the fund as hostages, makes it clear to the two partners that the EU is not going to resign itself to a

budget

impasse

that would further aggravate the economic crisis due to the pandemic.

The Union does well not to be intimidated by two Member States, which are also among the main beneficiaries of Community aid.

The veto of Hungary and Poland is an instrument that is part of the negotiation methods in Brussels.

Therefore, there is no objection to the right of these two countries to reserve their favorable vote on a matter that must be decided unanimously.

But the common practice in the Union, which Budapest and Warsaw must know very well after almost 17 years as partners, is to wield the right of veto only on exceptional occasions.

And, above all, not take advantage of it to obtain concessions in a parallel negotiation.

Orbán and Morawiecki subordinate their support to the Budgets to the withdrawal of an initiative that will allow the suspension of funds to countries where the rule of law is weakened.

This rule is approved by a qualified majority, with no possibility of veto power for anyone, and these two countries have tried to stop it with arguments dismantled by the rest of the partners as false or unfounded.

They have accused the European institutions, which they refer to as entities outside their own legal system, of laying a trap for them to cut off their funds as punishment for their political positions.

They claim that this regulation violates the Treaty.

Or that it will allow the Commission to exceed its powers.

The other partners have invited Budapest and Warsaw to raise their presumed doubts with the EU legal services or to appeal to the European Court of Justice.

But both have renounced that route, aware that their claims have little chance of success and have chosen to block accounts that, now more than ever, are impatiently awaited by hundreds of millions of citizens and companies, from farmers to Erasmus students or researchers;

from the hospital sector (a priority in the new framework) to the technological or environmental sector.

European leaders must not allow blackmailers to frustrate such expectations.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-12-06

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