European semifachas

It was time.

The European Commission proposes to sanction the Hungarian Viktor Orbán for being corrupt.

And so, suspend the delivery of 7,500 million euros of the Next Generation funds that were pre-attributed to it.

The justification is overwhelming: systemic corruption is a breach of the rule of law that threatens the community budget, because it diverts public funds from European taxpayers (or guaranteed by them) to the private pockets of the Budapest mafia.

It is the premiere of the mechanism of "conditionality" through which economic commitments lead to impeccable democratic demands.

And a timely reminder that Europe is not just any internal market (like Augusto Pinochet's Chile), but organized and controlled by liberal institutions.

It is a success of community governance.

Not surprisingly, the Strasbourg Parliament has just ruled that the Orbán regime is not a full democracy but a "hybrid of electoral autocracy".

Actions follow words.

It's better to rewind.

The regulation that allows this sanction took many months to approve, precisely because of the Hungarian and Polish opposition.

Both were defeated, and that required unanimity.

So the permanence of that antiquity of the right of veto is disastrous.

Delay decisions.

But in the end he can't stop them.

It just happened with Orbán's blockade of the decision to restrict the import of Russian oil.

And it will also happen with the kidnapping of the setting of a minimum rate of 15% in corporate tax.

The five large Member States will force compliance with this commitment of the 27 with the OECD, which paradoxically was promoted by the EU itself.

If the blockade persists, it will be implemented by “enhanced cooperation”, or through some mechanism external to the Treaty.

The premature gravediggers of Europe have an arduous task ahead of them: in fact, their responses have been falling on deaf ears for almost 70 years.

It is useful to underline these evidences that giddy or skeptical analysts often forget.

Even more so now, when other semi-fachas, in Sweden or Italy, humiliate the conventional democratic right — nostalgic for Angela Merkel! — they steal its Christian Democrat spirit and harness it to their chariot.

And this one, with dandy Manfred Weber at the helm, pays homage to them: nostalgia for the incorruptible Donald Tusk!

Not pass?

I wish.

But in any case they will end up going through the hoop, like Jörg Haider or Silvio Berlusconi.

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