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Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria. Disgrace of the EU. Wonder how long this can go on. Probably forever because the whole leadership of the EU is incredibly weak and di

Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria. Disgrace of the EU. Wonder how long this can go on. Probably forever because the whole leadership of the EU is incredibly weak and divided.

zupa-hu 6y ago
Please don't over generalize to the people in those countries.
- nabla9 6y ago
  Nobody is doing that. Only small majority of Hungarians are ignorant or far right.
  - carierx1 6y ago
    Far right does not equal ignorant, obviously.
the_duke 6y ago
With the UK leaving, Poland and Hungary and others sliding into very uncomfortable territory from a democracy perspective, and far right sentiments growing even in the western countries, the EU is heading towards a pretty dramatic identity crisis. A big issue is the lack of tools to take meaningful measures in this, or similar cases. There is the suspension clause [1], but using it is difficult, and could eventually lead to multiple additional departures. See this (older) article for some background [2]. The most viable (medium-term) way forward for me is to transform the current EU back into a a looser, mostly economy focused association. With a subgroup of states pursuing stronger, value-based integration. I think that multiple world-powers are pretty happy about this development. Russia obviously wants to gain back influence and would love to destabalize the EU. They are funneling money to EU sceptical parties all over Europe, including supporting Brexit. They also have "web brigades" for online propaganda campaigns. [3] But I also think the US grew unhappy about the economic (and partially political) strength of the EU in the mid 2000s, where we saw not only the Iraq fallout, but also the Euro established as a important currency. In the Obama years relations cooled off considerably. I don't think the US would be unhappy about a EU that is not broken, but weaker and more susceptible to influence. (the failure of TTIP is an interesting data point here) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_7_of_the_Treaty_on_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_7_of_the_Treaty_on_Eur... [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-can-still-block-hungarys-orban-veto-on-polish-pis-sanctions/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-can-still-block-hungarys-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades
- bzb3 6y ago
  Countries of the EU falling to far right populism is the result of some unpopular policies being imposed by the EU themselves—Your comment reeks of "beatings will continue until morality improves".
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    Far right populism in Europe far precedes the existence of the EU; it seems fairly perverse to just blanket blame the EU for it.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      It's resurgence does not though.
      - rsynnott 6y ago
        It's had multiple resurgences since WW2, and the current one may have already peaked in some places. Duda didn't exactly improve his numbers, say, and in most Western European countries the far right isn't actually looking all that healthy in polls.
        pessimizer 6y ago
        I've had the flu a lot, but that doesn't mean that I'm chronically infected with it. Every time I got sick, I caught it from a different person. Europe caught it from this intermediate condition where the core of the EU can consistently take advantage of the peripheral states, generating large trade surpluses, but have to be begged to help through begrudging one-off fixes (rather than federal institutions that work to and have the means to constantly rebalance things) whenever they crash one of them by loaning them too much money to buy things from the core. If federalism is just exploitation, the obvious last resort is nationalism.
  - andrepd 6y ago
    Hah, that is indeed the narrative but is it really true? Poland is one of the major recipients of EU aid, it also benefits immensely from the single market. Yet politicians always use it as a scapegoat blaming it for its problems!
bzb3 6y ago
What exactly should the EU do about democratically elected governments?
- nabla9 6y ago
  EU should be able to enforce the agreements those countries made or kick them out. Functioning democracy is not just elections. It's also free press, academic freedom and freedom of speech etc.
  - djKianoosh 6y ago
    I'm not from EU. Does the EU encourage or enforce any kind of education system/standards? Along with the things you mentioned, I would think that, long term, a healthy educational baseline would be critical for a functional government. And independent journalism is, by extension, critical for that, too.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    The problem is that most of the enforcement mechanisms need unanimity. Now that there are two of them, it's a difficult problem.
- sydd 6y ago
  Just something that they voted down recently: tie EU funding to democracy. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-summit-poland-netherlands/eu-delays-strict-rule-of-law-conditions-for-recovery-fund-idUSKCN24M112 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-summit-poland-netherla... Likely after this EU decision the the killing of index.hu was green lit by Fidesz
  - Sacho 6y ago
    This is the kind of ethical and competent journalism that we are fighting for? The article is not spell checked, parts of it are gibberish, and Orban's quote is politically editorialized to fit the narrative of good guys fighting bad guys for democracy!(as if you need to editorialize Orban to make him look bad..) The Polish Prime Minister's quote is completely butchered to the point of being gibberish: "Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hailed the “whole architecture of supervision” as a success." - this sounds like he's happy with the idea of supervision, which the article promptly contradicts a few paragraphs later. Here's a better writeup of what he said, from a polish news site(https://www.pap.pl/en/news/news%2C686607%2Ceur-160-bln-poland-eu-recovery-deal-pm.html https://www.pap.pl/en/news/news%2C686607%2Ceur-160-bln-polan...): "In his view, the conclusions of the summit are a great success from the financial point of view and the whole architecture of supervision over budget funds." "The Polish PM pointed out that in the deal adopted on Tuesday there is no direct linking between the rule of law and the allocation of EU funds as earlier proposed." OK, now it's obvious what he means - he's happy that the conclusions of the summit went his way and the architecture of supervision was scaled down or eliminated. Here's Orban's highly editorialized quote: "But Orban told reporters he had “thwarted and repelled” efforts to tie disbursement of funds to democratic values." Only two of those words are actually attributed to him! The rest of the description("tie disbursement of funds to democratic values") is not Orban's interpretation of events, but Reuters'! Here's a hungarian article(https://hungarytoday.hu/orban-govt-eur-3-bn-funding-brussels-summit-eu/ https://hungarytoday.hu/orban-govt-eur-3-bn-funding-brussels...): "Hungary and Poland thwarted the attempt to have others decide on the funds they are entitled to, the prime minister said in a regular interview to public broadcaster Kossuth Radio" That's a bit too neutral for Reuters, it doesn't make it sound like this a fight between "good" and "bad" guys. Of course, they could have just used any of Orban's other unhinged quotes: "The outcome of the recent European Union summit on the bloc’s 2021-2027 budget and its pandemic recovery package in Brussels can be interpreted as the Hungarian and Polish forces having “repelled the international attack of the liberal brigades”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday." (note how, while the quote is editorialized, the editorial is a passive, neutral, factual description of the events). It's not like you can't make Orban sound like a lunatic by just quoting him straight up. From the same article: "These are typically countries that are pro-immigration and hate us because we don’t allow them to enforce their migration policy and because Hungary stops migrants”, he said, adding that they were backed by US financier George Soros." I agree that good journalism is sorely needed, but it's not obvious that we're getting much of it in our "real" democracies either.
toyg 6y ago
Actually, the latest budget agreement at EU level contains added clauses to fight precisely this problem. They will have to be enforced, of course (which in EU terms is "only" large fines), but it should be fairly downhill from there.
rathel 6y ago
It's a consolation that Kaczyński was not able to gather supermajority in the parliament to change the constitution. It's unlikely to happen anyway, as he divided the Polish society in half. His party will probably rule for some time, but not gain much more support than today. He antagonized simply too many worker groups and professions out there. Another thing pointed out is that Hungary has somewhat more unequal development than Poland - and in both countries the ruling parties catered to the poor regions. Last but not least, for better or worse, there's dissent against authority in Polish blood. Tl;DR it will suck, but Poland won't have second Hungary.
yokaze 6y ago
> Probably forever because the whole leadership of the EU is incredibly weak and divided. I don't think, that is a fair description. Many critical decisions by design require unanimous consent (in the European Commission). So you need their vote on things, unless you suspend their voting rights. That in turn requires unanimous consent (excluding the accused) But it is clear, that other members of the Visegrád Group will block that. Also, not sure how a strong leadership in the EU could (or should) change the effects in a state. Personally, I think, they should have made the Brexit much smoother, so that other countries cannot make the EU the scapegoat.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  > Personally, I think, they should have made the Brexit much smoother _How_, though? It's hard to see how much more accommodating the EU could have been without fundamentally compromising itself.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    Adding a bit to that, the EU made clear what its terms, dictated by internal rules and treaties (for instance, the Good Friday Agreement forbidding border controls within Ireland) would be and those terms haven't changed. The UK has multiple times tried to ask for terms that violated previous agreements and that was refused. The pain for the UK is entirely self-inflicted. It was clear from the start it was a foolish idea. It's clear now it was a foolish idea and it'll continue to be abundantly clear it was a mindboggingly foolish idea from the start.
    - defnotashton2 6y ago
      This is a very pro EU biased view. To assert the EU governing body is not playing politics in brexit is absurdly applying a historical vacuum, ignoring the history of how tensions have grown and based on a modern narrative posthumously. The EU decided to force the currency issue with their largest economic contributor, and imo chose to die on that hill. The EU has threatened to hold Britain 'accountant able' by being intentionally obtuse and treating to impose artificial barriers for new agreements. The britts do the same thing, it's politics.
rubber_duck 6y ago
Disgrace of what ? Mafia owned Italy ? Industry owned Germany ? Tax heaven Ireland ? The only difference is that in poorer countries corruption is less sophisticated - but EU is plenty corrupt all over.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  In comparison with what? Every international corruptuon survey pegs most EU natuons as some of the least corrupt in the world.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ProZsolt 6y ago
    Corruption Perceptions Index: https://images.transparencycdn.org/images/2019_CPI_Report_EN_200331_141425.pdf https://images.transparencycdn.org/images/2019_CPI_Report_EN...
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      Did you read it? More than half of the least corrupt countries are in EU. Most corrupt country in Eu appears to be Bulgaria, and it does not make it into the more currpt half of the list. The countries that are properly corrupt are Russia, etc.
      - ProZsolt 6y ago
        That was my point, to confirm what you said earlier.
        ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        Oh, right. Conversatuon on the internet is sometimes hard.
- nabla9 6y ago
ed_balls 6y ago
Why Poland though? There was no hostile takeovers of press here. The only beef we have with EU is about judicial reforms which are much needed, but really hard to get it right. After the unification Germany was able to do a clean cut judicial reform of East Germany. Poland did not.
- thih9 6y ago
  The polish government does influence media; recent major event: >"Polish hit song on grieving 'censored', sparking protests" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52721152 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52721152
  - dgregd 6y ago
    That state funded radio station has 4,7% of the market share. Thanks to that censor action the song became very popular in other stations and YT.
  - ed_balls 6y ago
    And how is an example of government influence? Giving and order to censor would hurt them. This was most likely a PR stunt, stab at the ruling party or incompetent management.
    - thih9 6y ago
      > Giving and order to censor would hurt them. That’s not certain. I don’t think anyone would have predicted the events that followed. > This was most likely a PR stunt The context and behavior of people close to the matter suggest that this wasn’t a PR stunt. There were leavings, layoffs and statements from multiple sides. As far as I’m aware even the government didn’t imply that this was a PR stunt.
      - ed_balls 6y ago
        Gov said it's either incompetence or a provocation. I'd bet my money that was a PR stunt by people working for the radio. They were in conflict with the government for years. They wanted out. It's a good way to create buzz and establish a new crowd-founded radio - which they did https://patronite.pl/radionowyswiat https://patronite.pl/radionowyswiat
piokoch 6y ago
Actually in Poland more media are "liberal" anti-government than pro-government. As a matter of fact traditional media like TV, newspaper, vertical news portals are becoming less and less influential. In Poland this manifested clearly in 2015, when "liberals" were still in power (they had their president and majority in both parliament chambers), they were also supported by something like 80% of media, including the most influential, but they lost both presidential and parliament election anyway. The problem (tragedy?) of both Polish and Hungarian opposition is that they don't have any compelling story to tell. Voters are not gonna chose them only because they are progressive, nice and EU bureaucrats like them (bureaucrats, which does not mean all those who are really in charge - I bet that any EU action against Hungary will be killed swiftly and not by Poland, but by Volkswagen, which can do business in Hungary on a very comfortable conditions that current government granted them).
carierx1 6y ago
You're the only disgrace here.
edem 6y ago
The difference between Hungary and Germany is that corruption in Germany is institutionalized. If you take money from the EU in Hungary guess where you are _____encouraged_____ to spend it? Why do we have Siemens/Alstom/Volvo vehicles instead of our own (Ikarus/Raba)? Beacuse we were not allowed to buy our on shit, that's why.
- ody4242 6y ago
  The reason behind is that Ikarus/Raba are relics of the past? Look at the Raba Aquadux 4000 fire truck for example, that was developed in the last decade, and here are a couple of reports on how great it is: https://www.langlovagok.hu/7639/az-uj-magyar-narancs/ https://www.langlovagok.hu/7639/az-uj-magyar-narancs/ https://totalcar.hu/magazin/kozelet/2019/09/28/milyen_tuzoltoautokat_vehettunk_volna_a_magyar_helyett/ https://totalcar.hu/magazin/kozelet/2019/09/28/milyen_tuzolt... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir0mydDaPx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir0mydDaPx8 (this is not a driver fault, there are no wave breaks in the truck, other firetrucks can do slaloms at way higher speeds) https://index.hu/belfold/2019/09/19/tipushibak_miatt_borulhatott_fel_a_132_millio_forintert_vasarolt_tuzoltoauto/ https://index.hu/belfold/2019/09/19/tipushibak_miatt_borulha... https://24.hu/belfold/2017/11/07/sulyos-problemak-vannak-a-kirivoan-dragan-osszerakott-magyar-tuzoltoautokkal/ https://24.hu/belfold/2017/11/07/sulyos-problemak-vannak-a-k... Firefighters avoid it like the plague... And this is also a great example on why independent press is important, as none of the origo reports on this truck mention the issues with the firetruck: https://www.origo.hu/auto/20150224-ujra-gyartanak-tuzoltoautot-magyarorszagon.html https://www.origo.hu/auto/20150224-ujra-gyartanak-tuzoltoaut... https://www.origo.hu/auto/20170921-uj-tuzoltoautokat-kaptak-a-katasztrofavedok.html https://www.origo.hu/auto/20170921-uj-tuzoltoautokat-kaptak-... https://www.origo.hu/auto/20170926-tuzoltok-a-tanpalyan.html https://www.origo.hu/auto/20170926-tuzoltok-a-tanpalyan.html I don't understand why you'd want to keep these dead companies on life support from taxpayer money. Would you be willing to buy a Lada for the same price as a Skoda or Kia?
- ody4242 6y ago
  Don't get me wrong, I believe that there are many many good Hungarian companies like Prezi, LogMein, Zwack, Pick, Cafe Frei, Balabit, Commsignia, etc, that have great products, it's just that Raba and Ikarus does not belong to this list. At all.

Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria. Disgrace of the EU. Wonder how long this can go on. Probably forever because the whole leadership of the EU is incredibly weak and divided.

zupa-hu 6y ago

Please don't over generalize to the people in those countries.

nabla9 6y ago
Nobody is doing that. Only small majority of Hungarians are ignorant or far right.
- carierx1 6y ago
  Far right does not equal ignorant, obviously.

the_duke 6y ago

With the UK leaving, Poland and Hungary and others sliding into very uncomfortable territory from a democracy perspective, and far right sentiments growing even in the western countries, the EU is heading towards a pretty dramatic identity crisis. A big issue is the lack of tools to take meaningful measures in this, or similar cases. There is the suspension clause [1], but using it is difficult, and could eventually lead to multiple additional departures. See this (older) article for some background [2]. The most viable (medium-term) way forward for me is to transform the current EU back into a a looser, mostly economy focused association. With a subgroup of states pursuing stronger, value-based integration. I think that multiple world-powers are pretty happy about this development. Russia obviously wants to gain back influence and would love to destabalize the EU. They are funneling money to EU sceptical parties all over Europe, including supporting Brexit. They also have "web brigades" for online propaganda campaigns. [3] But I also think the US grew unhappy about the economic (and partially political) strength of the EU in the mid 2000s, where we saw not only the Iraq fallout, but also the Euro established as a important currency. In the Obama years relations cooled off considerably. I don't think the US would be unhappy about a EU that is not broken, but weaker and more susceptible to influence. (the failure of TTIP is an interesting data point here) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_7_of_the_Treaty_on_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_7_of_the_Treaty_on_Eur... [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-can-still-block-hungarys-orban-veto-on-polish-pis-sanctions/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-can-still-block-hungarys-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades

bzb3 6y ago
Countries of the EU falling to far right populism is the result of some unpopular policies being imposed by the EU themselves—Your comment reeks of "beatings will continue until morality improves".
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Far right populism in Europe far precedes the existence of the EU; it seems fairly perverse to just blanket blame the EU for it.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    It's resurgence does not though.
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      It's had multiple resurgences since WW2, and the current one may have already peaked in some places. Duda didn't exactly improve his numbers, say, and in most Western European countries the far right isn't actually looking all that healthy in polls.
      - pessimizer 6y ago
        I've had the flu a lot, but that doesn't mean that I'm chronically infected with it. Every time I got sick, I caught it from a different person. Europe caught it from this intermediate condition where the core of the EU can consistently take advantage of the peripheral states, generating large trade surpluses, but have to be begged to help through begrudging one-off fixes (rather than federal institutions that work to and have the means to constantly rebalance things) whenever they crash one of them by loaning them too much money to buy things from the core. If federalism is just exploitation, the obvious last resort is nationalism.
- andrepd 6y ago
  Hah, that is indeed the narrative but is it really true? Poland is one of the major recipients of EU aid, it also benefits immensely from the single market. Yet politicians always use it as a scapegoat blaming it for its problems!

bzb3 6y ago

What exactly should the EU do about democratically elected governments?

nabla9 6y ago
EU should be able to enforce the agreements those countries made or kick them out. Functioning democracy is not just elections. It's also free press, academic freedom and freedom of speech etc.
- djKianoosh 6y ago
  I'm not from EU. Does the EU encourage or enforce any kind of education system/standards? Along with the things you mentioned, I would think that, long term, a healthy educational baseline would be critical for a functional government. And independent journalism is, by extension, critical for that, too.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  The problem is that most of the enforcement mechanisms need unanimity. Now that there are two of them, it's a difficult problem.
sydd 6y ago
Just something that they voted down recently: tie EU funding to democracy. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-summit-poland-netherlands/eu-delays-strict-rule-of-law-conditions-for-recovery-fund-idUSKCN24M112 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-summit-poland-netherla... Likely after this EU decision the the killing of index.hu was green lit by Fidesz
- Sacho 6y ago
  This is the kind of ethical and competent journalism that we are fighting for? The article is not spell checked, parts of it are gibberish, and Orban's quote is politically editorialized to fit the narrative of good guys fighting bad guys for democracy!(as if you need to editorialize Orban to make him look bad..) The Polish Prime Minister's quote is completely butchered to the point of being gibberish: "Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hailed the “whole architecture of supervision” as a success." - this sounds like he's happy with the idea of supervision, which the article promptly contradicts a few paragraphs later. Here's a better writeup of what he said, from a polish news site(https://www.pap.pl/en/news/news%2C686607%2Ceur-160-bln-poland-eu-recovery-deal-pm.html https://www.pap.pl/en/news/news%2C686607%2Ceur-160-bln-polan...): "In his view, the conclusions of the summit are a great success from the financial point of view and the whole architecture of supervision over budget funds." "The Polish PM pointed out that in the deal adopted on Tuesday there is no direct linking between the rule of law and the allocation of EU funds as earlier proposed." OK, now it's obvious what he means - he's happy that the conclusions of the summit went his way and the architecture of supervision was scaled down or eliminated. Here's Orban's highly editorialized quote: "But Orban told reporters he had “thwarted and repelled” efforts to tie disbursement of funds to democratic values." Only two of those words are actually attributed to him! The rest of the description("tie disbursement of funds to democratic values") is not Orban's interpretation of events, but Reuters'! Here's a hungarian article(https://hungarytoday.hu/orban-govt-eur-3-bn-funding-brussels-summit-eu/ https://hungarytoday.hu/orban-govt-eur-3-bn-funding-brussels...): "Hungary and Poland thwarted the attempt to have others decide on the funds they are entitled to, the prime minister said in a regular interview to public broadcaster Kossuth Radio" That's a bit too neutral for Reuters, it doesn't make it sound like this a fight between "good" and "bad" guys. Of course, they could have just used any of Orban's other unhinged quotes: "The outcome of the recent European Union summit on the bloc’s 2021-2027 budget and its pandemic recovery package in Brussels can be interpreted as the Hungarian and Polish forces having “repelled the international attack of the liberal brigades”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday." (note how, while the quote is editorialized, the editorial is a passive, neutral, factual description of the events). It's not like you can't make Orban sound like a lunatic by just quoting him straight up. From the same article: "These are typically countries that are pro-immigration and hate us because we don’t allow them to enforce their migration policy and because Hungary stops migrants”, he said, adding that they were backed by US financier George Soros." I agree that good journalism is sorely needed, but it's not obvious that we're getting much of it in our "real" democracies either.

toyg 6y ago

Actually, the latest budget agreement at EU level contains added clauses to fight precisely this problem. They will have to be enforced, of course (which in EU terms is "only" large fines), but it should be fairly downhill from there.

rathel 6y ago

It's a consolation that Kaczyński was not able to gather supermajority in the parliament to change the constitution. It's unlikely to happen anyway, as he divided the Polish society in half. His party will probably rule for some time, but not gain much more support than today. He antagonized simply too many worker groups and professions out there. Another thing pointed out is that Hungary has somewhat more unequal development than Poland - and in both countries the ruling parties catered to the poor regions. Last but not least, for better or worse, there's dissent against authority in Polish blood. Tl;DR it will suck, but Poland won't have second Hungary.

yokaze 6y ago

> Probably forever because the whole leadership of the EU is incredibly weak and divided. I don't think, that is a fair description. Many critical decisions by design require unanimous consent (in the European Commission). So you need their vote on things, unless you suspend their voting rights. That in turn requires unanimous consent (excluding the accused) But it is clear, that other members of the Visegrád Group will block that. Also, not sure how a strong leadership in the EU could (or should) change the effects in a state. Personally, I think, they should have made the Brexit much smoother, so that other countries cannot make the EU the scapegoat.

rsynnott 6y ago
> Personally, I think, they should have made the Brexit much smoother _How_, though? It's hard to see how much more accommodating the EU could have been without fundamentally compromising itself.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  Adding a bit to that, the EU made clear what its terms, dictated by internal rules and treaties (for instance, the Good Friday Agreement forbidding border controls within Ireland) would be and those terms haven't changed. The UK has multiple times tried to ask for terms that violated previous agreements and that was refused. The pain for the UK is entirely self-inflicted. It was clear from the start it was a foolish idea. It's clear now it was a foolish idea and it'll continue to be abundantly clear it was a mindboggingly foolish idea from the start.
  - defnotashton2 6y ago
    This is a very pro EU biased view. To assert the EU governing body is not playing politics in brexit is absurdly applying a historical vacuum, ignoring the history of how tensions have grown and based on a modern narrative posthumously. The EU decided to force the currency issue with their largest economic contributor, and imo chose to die on that hill. The EU has threatened to hold Britain 'accountant able' by being intentionally obtuse and treating to impose artificial barriers for new agreements. The britts do the same thing, it's politics.

rubber_duck 6y ago

Disgrace of what ? Mafia owned Italy ? Industry owned Germany ? Tax heaven Ireland ? The only difference is that in poorer countries corruption is less sophisticated - but EU is plenty corrupt all over.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
In comparison with what? Every international corruptuon survey pegs most EU natuons as some of the least corrupt in the world.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ProZsolt 6y ago
  Corruption Perceptions Index: https://images.transparencycdn.org/images/2019_CPI_Report_EN_200331_141425.pdf https://images.transparencycdn.org/images/2019_CPI_Report_EN...
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Did you read it? More than half of the least corrupt countries are in EU. Most corrupt country in Eu appears to be Bulgaria, and it does not make it into the more currpt half of the list. The countries that are properly corrupt are Russia, etc.
    - ProZsolt 6y ago
      That was my point, to confirm what you said earlier.
      - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        Oh, right. Conversatuon on the internet is sometimes hard.
nabla9 6y ago

ed_balls 6y ago

Why Poland though? There was no hostile takeovers of press here. The only beef we have with EU is about judicial reforms which are much needed, but really hard to get it right. After the unification Germany was able to do a clean cut judicial reform of East Germany. Poland did not.

thih9 6y ago
The polish government does influence media; recent major event: >"Polish hit song on grieving 'censored', sparking protests" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52721152 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52721152
- dgregd 6y ago
  That state funded radio station has 4,7% of the market share. Thanks to that censor action the song became very popular in other stations and YT.
- ed_balls 6y ago
  And how is an example of government influence? Giving and order to censor would hurt them. This was most likely a PR stunt, stab at the ruling party or incompetent management.
  - thih9 6y ago
    > Giving and order to censor would hurt them. That’s not certain. I don’t think anyone would have predicted the events that followed. > This was most likely a PR stunt The context and behavior of people close to the matter suggest that this wasn’t a PR stunt. There were leavings, layoffs and statements from multiple sides. As far as I’m aware even the government didn’t imply that this was a PR stunt.
    - ed_balls 6y ago
      Gov said it's either incompetence or a provocation. I'd bet my money that was a PR stunt by people working for the radio. They were in conflict with the government for years. They wanted out. It's a good way to create buzz and establish a new crowd-founded radio - which they did https://patronite.pl/radionowyswiat https://patronite.pl/radionowyswiat

piokoch 6y ago

Actually in Poland more media are "liberal" anti-government than pro-government. As a matter of fact traditional media like TV, newspaper, vertical news portals are becoming less and less influential. In Poland this manifested clearly in 2015, when "liberals" were still in power (they had their president and majority in both parliament chambers), they were also supported by something like 80% of media, including the most influential, but they lost both presidential and parliament election anyway. The problem (tragedy?) of both Polish and Hungarian opposition is that they don't have any compelling story to tell. Voters are not gonna chose them only because they are progressive, nice and EU bureaucrats like them (bureaucrats, which does not mean all those who are really in charge - I bet that any EU action against Hungary will be killed swiftly and not by Poland, but by Volkswagen, which can do business in Hungary on a very comfortable conditions that current government granted them).

carierx1 6y ago

You're the only disgrace here.

edem 6y ago

The difference between Hungary and Germany is that corruption in Germany is institutionalized. If you take money from the EU in Hungary guess where you are _____encouraged_____ to spend it? Why do we have Siemens/Alstom/Volvo vehicles instead of our own (Ikarus/Raba)? Beacuse we were not allowed to buy our on shit, that's why.

ody4242 6y ago
The reason behind is that Ikarus/Raba are relics of the past? Look at the Raba Aquadux 4000 fire truck for example, that was developed in the last decade, and here are a couple of reports on how great it is: https://www.langlovagok.hu/7639/az-uj-magyar-narancs/ https://www.langlovagok.hu/7639/az-uj-magyar-narancs/ https://totalcar.hu/magazin/kozelet/2019/09/28/milyen_tuzoltoautokat_vehettunk_volna_a_magyar_helyett/ https://totalcar.hu/magazin/kozelet/2019/09/28/milyen_tuzolt... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir0mydDaPx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir0mydDaPx8 (this is not a driver fault, there are no wave breaks in the truck, other firetrucks can do slaloms at way higher speeds) https://index.hu/belfold/2019/09/19/tipushibak_miatt_borulhatott_fel_a_132_millio_forintert_vasarolt_tuzoltoauto/ https://index.hu/belfold/2019/09/19/tipushibak_miatt_borulha... https://24.hu/belfold/2017/11/07/sulyos-problemak-vannak-a-kirivoan-dragan-osszerakott-magyar-tuzoltoautokkal/ https://24.hu/belfold/2017/11/07/sulyos-problemak-vannak-a-k... Firefighters avoid it like the plague... And this is also a great example on why independent press is important, as none of the origo reports on this truck mention the issues with the firetruck: https://www.origo.hu/auto/20150224-ujra-gyartanak-tuzoltoautot-magyarorszagon.html https://www.origo.hu/auto/20150224-ujra-gyartanak-tuzoltoaut... https://www.origo.hu/auto/20170921-uj-tuzoltoautokat-kaptak-a-katasztrofavedok.html https://www.origo.hu/auto/20170921-uj-tuzoltoautokat-kaptak-... https://www.origo.hu/auto/20170926-tuzoltok-a-tanpalyan.html https://www.origo.hu/auto/20170926-tuzoltok-a-tanpalyan.html I don't understand why you'd want to keep these dead companies on life support from taxpayer money. Would you be willing to buy a Lada for the same price as a Skoda or Kia?
ody4242 6y ago
Don't get me wrong, I believe that there are many many good Hungarian companies like Prezi, LogMein, Zwack, Pick, Cafe Frei, Balabit, Commsignia, etc, that have great products, it's just that Raba and Ikarus does not belong to this list. At all.