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For me it's more a lesson about how unanimous votes, or unanimous - N can become problematic. In the EU the same is happening. Poland and Hungary have found a

• mjw1007 7y ago
  That too, but I fear there are likely to be ways a hostile director could cause serious trouble even without a unanimous vote requirement.
• james_s_tayler 7y ago
  Yeah unanimous is ironic in that actually a single actor controls the outcome.
• stereo 7y ago
  It’s an old Polish tradition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto
• ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Hungary and Poland aren't the first to abuse the unanimous-1 veto. The Netherlands always vetos Romania's application to enter the Schengen zone as Romania's harbors to the Black Sea will provide cheaper alternatives for import of goods to the Dutch ones.
  • eatonphil 7y ago
    Had to validate the Netherlands claim out of curiosity. The claim is popular but even Romanian officials have stated this is not true [0]. [0] http://business-review.eu/news/pm-ciolos-future-of-constanta-port-not-linked-to-dutch-refusal-on-romania-schengen-acceptance-117603 http://business-review.eu/news/pm-ciolos-future-of-constanta...
    • ccozan 7y ago
      Mind you, not officially! However, the endemic corruption could be the real reason.
      • tcptomato 7y ago
        And you want the Romanian government to admit that? Of course it's the Dutch who are jealous of a port which couldn't we worse located/s
  • tcptomato 7y ago
    Right, a port at the other end of Europe without good connections to the West, whose usage maybe makes sense only for ships passing through the Suez and Bosporus is a competitor to the ones sitting on the Atlantic. And it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that the Romanian coastal surveillance system was conveniently down when cocaine started to shop up on the beaches.
    • mlpinit 7y ago
      I'm not sure about the merits of the original claim, but you can't dismiss the Suez like that. It's the connection you need between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean and it lends itself to a ton of traffic: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:32.2/centery:49.7/zoom:4 https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:32.2/cente...
      • benj111 7y ago
        Agreed. Additionally Greece, Italy, France, Spain suggest a port located near(er) the Suez canal isn't a threat to Dutch ports.
• bluecalm 7y ago
  Well if they believe similar things they vote accordingly. It's not a loophole, just two governments having similar views about those issues. It's for the better as well, if you allowed sanctions for refusing immigration policy you would end up with huge backlash and likely several countries exiting EU.
• bitL 7y ago
  > Poland and Hungary have found a loophole allowing them to ignore EU rules and sanctions while still profiting from subsidies and market access AFAIK this was tit-for-tat: HU & PL closed/sold-off their industry in favor of WEU in exchange for subsidies. Removing these subsidies for any reason would violate the main economic agreement between them and EU. Mind you, there is no significant locally grown industry in those countries anymore (outside of a few state-owned industries), WEU profited from this enormously, especially Germany. As economic potential of this arrangement has been exhausted after 25 years already, incorporating UA is the next move to give EU (primarily DE/FR/NL) some nice economy boost for the next 10 years. EU is essentially playing Sim City.
  • eatonphil 7y ago
    What is UA? Edit: Ukraine.
  • coldtea 7y ago
    Same playbook as with Greece -- which up to the 80s and the EEC had a larger industry presence, and discarded most of it with non-compete laws and the lure of subsidies in favor of the nothern-western parts of WEU.
    • xorcist 7y ago
      No need to get conspiratorial. Industry jobs nosedived since the 80s all over Western Europe (and beyond) for well known reasons.
  • 781 7y ago
    Russia killed whatever plan the EU had for Ukraine. There is no way EU let's in a state where russian troops operate.
  • mamon 7y ago
    Adding to that: one of the fundamental EU rules was freedom to do bussiness anywhere in EU. That worked in favor of Western countries which had their corporations opening offices in Poland, and making huge profits here. After some time Poland found some niches for itself, e.g. Polish transportation companies dominate EU market in truck freight. What was the EU response to that? They recently passed change in labor laws, that would make this business unprofitable. So: common EU market is fine as long as Western countries benefit from it, but Poland or other Eastern countries making money from business in the West is against the rules :)
• badpun 7y ago
  How’s that a loophole? That’s literally how unanimous works, if EU wanted to be ruled by majority, they should have decided on that instead.
  • IshKebab 7y ago
    That's the point - unanimous voting is open to abuse from tiny minorities.
    • thaumasiotes 7y ago
      Eh, I wouldn't so much call it "abuse". Coming to consensus takes work. At a large enough scale, it won't ever happen, and the EU is much larger than that -- it's never going to meet any unanimity requirements. Not sure what they were thinking with such a policy. Unanimity is something you can have at the village level.
• coldtea 7y ago
  You think e.g. Germany doesn't do the same with several satellite countries they play for with funds, trade deals, diplomatic pressure, and so on, to get a bunch of votes on EU matters based on their interests?
• 781 7y ago
  France broke the EU deficit rules for over a decade. Everybody talked about it, but nobody acted. If a EU state refuses to do a thing, that's basically it. https://piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/frances-deficit-tests-flexibility-eus-fiscal-rules https://piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/france...
  • ajnin 7y ago
    Germany's been breaking the EU's excessive trade surplus rules for more than ten years as well, and nobody even talks about it ! Go figure.
    • riffraff 7y ago
      how does nobody talk about it? It's mentioned fairly regularly by commentators. Less than the italian deficit for sure, but still a well known fact. If anything, few people mention the dutch trade surplus (I presume because the "netherland is evil!!" narrative is not as common as "german is evil!!").
  • hestefisk 7y ago
    Not true. The commission can chose to sue any memberships state in the European high court. Denmark was sued by EU for not allowing sale of tin can drinks (beers, soft drinks) in Denmark due to environmental concerns. It was seen as a kind of protectionism.
• lkrubner 7y ago
  The irony is that Poland was once the #1 or #2 power in Europe, but they were destroyed by unanimous voting. Want to raise taxes to build an army to repel foreign invasion? Everyone agrees, except that one person too far from Russia to care, and the taxes get vetoed, so Russia wins, thus Poland was destroyed. The Poles know how dangerous unanimity is.
  • icegreentea2 7y ago
    Which instance are you referring to?
    • TeMPOraL 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto What I remember from history lessons in school agrees with Wikipedia's description, so I'll just quote: "Many historians hold that the liberum veto was a major cause of the deterioration of the Commonwealth political system, particularly in the 18th century, when foreign powers bribed Sejm members to paralyze its proceedings, and the Commonwealth's eventual destruction in the partitions of Poland and foreign occupation, dominance and manipulation of Poland for the next 200 years or so. Piotr Stefan Wandycz wrote that the "liberum veto had become the sinister symbol of old Polish anarchy". In the period of 1573–1763, about 150 sejms were held, about a third failing to pass any legislation, mostly because of the liberum veto."
      • int_19h 7y ago
        This was noted already at that time: "To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. Congress, from the nonattendance of a few States, have been frequently in the situation of a Polish diet, where a single VOTE has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an entire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory. The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy. It is not difficult to discover, that a principle of this kind gives greater scope to foreign corruption, as well as to domestic faction, than that which permits the sense of the majority to decide; though the contrary of this has been presumed. The mistake has proceeded from not attending with due care to the mischiefs that may be occasioned by obstructing the progress of government at certain critical seasons. When the concurrence of a large number is required by the Constitution to the doing of any national act, we are apt to rest satisfied that all is safe, because nothing improper will be likely TO BE DONE, but we forget how much good may be prevented, and how much ill may be produced, by the power of hindering the doing what may be necessary, and of keeping affairs in the same unfavorable posture in which they may happen to stand at particular periods."
• yumraj 7y ago
  UN security council is another classic example, where any permanent member can use the veto to block any resolution they want, regardless of how the other permanent or elected members vote.
  • DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
    That’s by design. The council is kept small and all permanent members are nuclear powers. The ability for Russia and the US to veto each other’s foreign policy spats and agreeing-to-disagree is the reason we’re still alive today.
    • yumraj 7y ago
      There are more nuclear powers now, so shouldn't the security council permanent membership be expanded? We're not in 1945 anymore.
      • DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
        The _neu_-nuclear powers possess at most a few hundred warheads and lack true intercontinental delivery systems. They might kill a few million people but the damage will be localised. All of the countries that could - and would (given the right kind of existential threat posed by another) kill a few _hundred million_ people in even a limited exchange are on the council. There are other, non-nuclear states that could cause similar (<10m) deathcounts if they had a conflict. What we don’t want to do is frame the security council as “the nuclear club” which allows them to dictate global security - that would give states like DPRK and Hussein’s Iraq even more motivation to pursue a nuclear weapons programme. To an extent it does come down to sincerity - I’m not concerned about India being a nuclear power despite it bordering Pakistan and PRC: I have faith in India’s democracy and stability to use their power responsibly (Kashmir is another discussion) - but I don’t extend that to DPRK who are clearly using it to avoid a Libya-type situation but who may end up using it anyway given the inherent instability of autocratic dynasties.
        • yumraj 7y ago
• hollerith 7y ago
  OK, but Poland and Hungary are far from the only nations ignoring EU rules (though they might be the only ones ignoring certain particular rules). Take for example the Italian government's decision to run a deficit higher than what is allowed under EU rules (2% per year if I recall correctly). The EU tried to put a brave face on it: they held negotiations with the Italian government and announced a compromise, but it was pretty obvious to people who follow EU politics that the EU had no effective means to enforce the rule on Italy. And this cap on deficit spending by governments of member nations is no minor rule. Many had stated over the years since the introduction of the Euro that the rule is necessary for the single currency to work.
• thrower123 7y ago
  Two countries in the EU that seem to be actually concerned with their futures and the welfare of their citizens...