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With the UK leaving, Poland and Hungary and others sliding into very uncomfortable territory from a democracy perspective, and far right sentiments growing eve

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
    So you have to take the bad with the good? Can't you say "money is good, but being forced to be leeched on by refugees of NATO wars is unsavoury and doesn't help anybody"
    - ric2b 6y ago
      > be leeched on by refugees Had to re-read that one. Really, people desperately fleeing from wars, who've had their lives destroyed, are leeches? It's fine if you don't think it's your responsibility to help them, but at least try to be respectful of their difficulties.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    The Polish political/media approach seems very, very similar to the British; anything good, Poland did, anything bad is the EU's fault. I think most member states do this to an extent, but a few really lean into it, causing a lot of public confusion.
- sydd 6y ago
  Nope, I witnessed the rise of populism in Hungary, its a very interesting story. Mostly because its a small country, so its easier to see behind the curtains and because its in the border of the west-east influence zone. Hungary had far right activist since it was freed from the soviet union (MIEP [1] and early Jobbik [2] ), but these were very different from the ones today. They hated the Soviet union and Russia with a passion, since they occupied Hungary for 40 years. Another prominent feature of them was hating on jews. Also they never had any significant popularity, most ppl saw them just as wackos. Then around 2010 something happened. The far right (mostly Jobbik at this time) reversed its stance on Russia and started hating the EU and US within like half a year (also they stopped their anti-jew rhetoric). Also small, dubious news sites and started popping up which praised Putin so much I thought it was a joke. Same thing happened in conspiracy sites - a few years earlier they content was about UFOs, lizard men, angels etc. and suddenly political articles praising Putin started appearing in them e.g. [3]. After these changes moving away from straight nazi stuff Jobbik started to become more and more popular, so much that Fidesz felt threatened. (around 2010 Fidesz was center-right). So they started saying the same things as Jobbik (and discrediting them, e.g. spreading fake news that the party's head was muslim), just louder, and with more $$$ backing them up wich leads to today. So IMO it was a carefully planned operation from Russia (support extremist voices to start infighting in the EU) that turned out very well. They are of course not 100% responsible (the other part is the PC culture taken too far), just gave a kick in the right direction. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Justice_and_Life_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Justice_and_Life_Par... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik 3: https://www.facebook.com/Hihetetlen.Magazin/posts/944174948977240/ https://www.facebook.com/Hihetetlen.Magazin/posts/9441749489... Here they say that Putin is fighing against the Satan which is US and the EU.
  - ss2003 6y ago
    The question is how does one thwart and reverse such an attack?
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      Make a better argument.
toyg 6y ago
This is a pessimistic view that does not understand the dynamics of the Union. The European Union is, fundamentally, a very young superstate. It's not even 30-years-old, in practice. This is not its final form. The EU is like Asimov's Foundation: it makes progress by facing (or provoking) crisis after crisis, and finding new equilibria and new policy tools. It's a bit like the US in early-XIX century or pre-WWII, when structures were fluid and conventions were still being established. Remember the US had to go through a civil war to establish the unquestioned primacy of federal policy; China and Russia solidified through bloody revolutions. If we can get there with only a bit of bitching and debating, we will have done better than anyone ever managed.
- sjwright 6y ago
  The EU is trying to have its cake and eat it too. An economic union with independent economies. A political union with independent politics. A human rights union with ghettos of language. It's ridiculous that anyone thought a union between Ireland (where corporate tax is optional), Spain (where personal tax is optional), Germany (a straight-laced financial behemoth), the UK (the remnants of an empire) and Greece (a perpetual basketcase) would ever be successful.
  - zbentley 6y ago
    > An economic union with independent economies Fair point. > A political union with independent politics. Yep, pretty sticky. > A human rights union with ghettos of language. Wait, what? What does language have to do with whether or not a nation- and culture-spanning political entity has a unifying notion of human rights? Lots of states and superstates have problems with human rights standards being inconsistently applied among their constituencies. But I don't see what that has to do with language.
    - sjwright 6y ago
      Language is a barrier to cultural union. It can be a blindfold to the rest of the world who are not invited into many parts of contemporary Hungarian culture. It can be a blindfold for its citizens, limiting exposure to external culture. Without shared language, it's harder for the Hungarian people to be influenced by the culture and politics of its neighbours. Even on a more basic level, the fall of Index.hu is made a greater problem because there's no Hungarian-language media in neighbouring Austria or Slovakia.
boienoien 6y ago
> With the UK leaving What do you mean "leaving"? The UK ceased to be part of the EU six months ago.
- regularfry 6y ago
  Legally we've left. Culturally and practically we've got a way to go.
- Macha 6y ago
  The UK's departure 6 months ago is a milestone that's more political than actual. During the transitional period of the withdrawal agreement, the UK is effectively a non-voting member this year as it has no option to opt of EU regulations or budget contributions until the end of this period. Other parts of their departure, like the Northern Ireland backstop have their own conditions before the UK can adjust them. Describing the departure as in progress rather than done is very much accurate.
- modo_mario 6y ago
  and in effect nothing has changed yet until the transition period is over and agreements have been made.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Technically correct is of course the best sort of correct. The UK transitioned from being part of the EU into a sort of weird temporary EU dependency, in practice; it no longer gets to vote, but hasn't meaningfully left the EU until next year.

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
  So you have to take the bad with the good? Can't you say "money is good, but being forced to be leeched on by refugees of NATO wars is unsavoury and doesn't help anybody"
  - ric2b 6y ago
    > be leeched on by refugees Had to re-read that one. Really, people desperately fleeing from wars, who've had their lives destroyed, are leeches? It's fine if you don't think it's your responsibility to help them, but at least try to be respectful of their difficulties.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  The Polish political/media approach seems very, very similar to the British; anything good, Poland did, anything bad is the EU's fault. I think most member states do this to an extent, but a few really lean into it, causing a lot of public confusion.
sydd 6y ago
Nope, I witnessed the rise of populism in Hungary, its a very interesting story. Mostly because its a small country, so its easier to see behind the curtains and because its in the border of the west-east influence zone. Hungary had far right activist since it was freed from the soviet union (MIEP [1] and early Jobbik [2] ), but these were very different from the ones today. They hated the Soviet union and Russia with a passion, since they occupied Hungary for 40 years. Another prominent feature of them was hating on jews. Also they never had any significant popularity, most ppl saw them just as wackos. Then around 2010 something happened. The far right (mostly Jobbik at this time) reversed its stance on Russia and started hating the EU and US within like half a year (also they stopped their anti-jew rhetoric). Also small, dubious news sites and started popping up which praised Putin so much I thought it was a joke. Same thing happened in conspiracy sites - a few years earlier they content was about UFOs, lizard men, angels etc. and suddenly political articles praising Putin started appearing in them e.g. [3]. After these changes moving away from straight nazi stuff Jobbik started to become more and more popular, so much that Fidesz felt threatened. (around 2010 Fidesz was center-right). So they started saying the same things as Jobbik (and discrediting them, e.g. spreading fake news that the party's head was muslim), just louder, and with more $$$ backing them up wich leads to today. So IMO it was a carefully planned operation from Russia (support extremist voices to start infighting in the EU) that turned out very well. They are of course not 100% responsible (the other part is the PC culture taken too far), just gave a kick in the right direction. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Justice_and_Life_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Justice_and_Life_Par... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik 3: https://www.facebook.com/Hihetetlen.Magazin/posts/944174948977240/ https://www.facebook.com/Hihetetlen.Magazin/posts/9441749489... Here they say that Putin is fighing against the Satan which is US and the EU.
- ss2003 6y ago
  The question is how does one thwart and reverse such an attack?
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Make a better argument.

toyg 6y ago

This is a pessimistic view that does not understand the dynamics of the Union. The European Union is, fundamentally, a very young superstate. It's not even 30-years-old, in practice. This is not its final form. The EU is like Asimov's Foundation: it makes progress by facing (or provoking) crisis after crisis, and finding new equilibria and new policy tools. It's a bit like the US in early-XIX century or pre-WWII, when structures were fluid and conventions were still being established. Remember the US had to go through a civil war to establish the unquestioned primacy of federal policy; China and Russia solidified through bloody revolutions. If we can get there with only a bit of bitching and debating, we will have done better than anyone ever managed.

sjwright 6y ago
The EU is trying to have its cake and eat it too. An economic union with independent economies. A political union with independent politics. A human rights union with ghettos of language. It's ridiculous that anyone thought a union between Ireland (where corporate tax is optional), Spain (where personal tax is optional), Germany (a straight-laced financial behemoth), the UK (the remnants of an empire) and Greece (a perpetual basketcase) would ever be successful.
- zbentley 6y ago
  > An economic union with independent economies Fair point. > A political union with independent politics. Yep, pretty sticky. > A human rights union with ghettos of language. Wait, what? What does language have to do with whether or not a nation- and culture-spanning political entity has a unifying notion of human rights? Lots of states and superstates have problems with human rights standards being inconsistently applied among their constituencies. But I don't see what that has to do with language.
  - sjwright 6y ago
    Language is a barrier to cultural union. It can be a blindfold to the rest of the world who are not invited into many parts of contemporary Hungarian culture. It can be a blindfold for its citizens, limiting exposure to external culture. Without shared language, it's harder for the Hungarian people to be influenced by the culture and politics of its neighbours. Even on a more basic level, the fall of Index.hu is made a greater problem because there's no Hungarian-language media in neighbouring Austria or Slovakia.

boienoien 6y ago

> With the UK leaving What do you mean "leaving"? The UK ceased to be part of the EU six months ago.

regularfry 6y ago
Legally we've left. Culturally and practically we've got a way to go.
Macha 6y ago
The UK's departure 6 months ago is a milestone that's more political than actual. During the transitional period of the withdrawal agreement, the UK is effectively a non-voting member this year as it has no option to opt of EU regulations or budget contributions until the end of this period. Other parts of their departure, like the Northern Ireland backstop have their own conditions before the UK can adjust them. Describing the departure as in progress rather than done is very much accurate.
modo_mario 6y ago
and in effect nothing has changed yet until the transition period is over and agreements have been made.
rsynnott 6y ago
Technically correct is of course the best sort of correct. The UK transitioned from being part of the EU into a sort of weird temporary EU dependency, in practice; it no longer gets to vote, but hasn't meaningfully left the EU until next year.