Slovak attack on the governments of Hungary and Poland: dovidenia, V4

If someone had thought that Visegrad 4 (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia) within the Member States of the European Union could speak with one voice in a common bloc on issues involving the four countries, they might have been seriously disappointed . In an interview with the Financial Times, Slovak Prime Minister Zuzana Caputová made it clear that she agreed with European governments that the EU must strictly adhere to the rule of law, so it must act harshly against those member states to be raped.

Caputova, who previously worked as an anti-corruption lawyer and had no political background, was elected last year by the people of Slovakia as their country’s head of state. This has been one of the rare successes of liberal and pro-European political forces in the Central and Eastern European region, according to the British financial newspaper. Of course, we need a coercive mechanism to ensure that EU member states adhere to the rule of law, so that the Union does not become hostage to countries that do not want to follow this rule, Caputova said. It also provides an opportunity to set the standards of the rule of law, he added.

Four stingy

The Slovak president reiterated the views of stingy or frugal northern European countries (Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria in the process of accession), which also want to protect the rule of law, which would be forced by tying aid EU financial statement to the rule of law. payment. The majority of the European Parliament is also in this position, on the other side of the front, the governments of Hungary and Poland have plunged into political trenches, according to which the rule of law cannot be objectively defined, so compliance cannot. be bound by rules.

Caputová left no doubt as to what he meant. He said the EU should go further by making the most critical decisions unanimously. The aim was to ensure that the proceedings under Article 7 of the European Treaty, initiated by the European Commission against Poland and by the European Parliament against Hungary, which could lead to the withdrawal of the voting rights of Member States in the EU , could only be opened unanimously against each Member State. In this way, the Hungarian and Polish Prime Ministers can avoid strict action against the other state by mutual veto. In light of this, it is clear what the Slovak head of state is thinking when he says that the qualified majority rule, that is, the two-thirds rule, should be introduced by rejecting unanimity.

Merkel is also wrong

Ms Caputová believes that the slowness of EU decision-making makes it more difficult to counter authoritarian tendencies. With this, he referred to the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in early October, which declared the approval of the Hungarian Higher Education Law contrary to European law, according to which the American degrees of the Central European University had to leave Budapest to Vienna. Hungarian legislation dates from 2017, so according to the Slovak president, the court decision came late and the late justice is not a judiciary. That is why he believes that new methods are needed.

He answered yes if the European People’s Party (EPP), of which Fidesz is a member, and personally the EPP’s largest party, the German CDU leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel, is responsible for postponing the tough actions against the Hungarian ruling party. . . What often surprises me is the relativization of principles, he said. On the one hand, the principles are stated out loud, and on the other hand, the actions do not reflect these commonly agreed requirements. The validation of all methods depends on the people who apply them. Therefore, personal responsibility is important: if the people who could do it do not apply the principles consistently, then there is no mechanism that can take care of it.