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An irony to the story is that Poland (who is a party to this as the registration country of the actual plane, and a self-declared leader of the anti-Lukashenko

An irony to the story is that Poland (who is a party to this as the registration country of the actual plane, and a self-declared leader of the anti-Lukashenko movement) now demands the EU takes strong actions to secure the EU (Poland)’s security. Literally yesterday prime minister went on record to say they will outright ignore the ruling of the highest EU court on an ecological / energy case (lignite mining close to the Czech border.

danielEM 5y ago
Nice try Sasha! Wondering if you represent Russian or Belarussian regime? Only irony here is that in discussion on the topic of journalist who is facing now death penalty you're bringing somewhat important (but not in this discussion) ecological topic.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  Ermmm... what? The genuine irony is how Poland, my home country, within 24hrs went from telling the EU to go stuff itself to begging for help, and seemingly even without noticing the contradiction. For the journalist, I feel very sorry (I don’t know much about him tbh but death penalty is excessive for any crime, even more so for one imagined by Lukashenko). This doesn’t preclude making a wider observation. But surely, this is what my Russian masters told me to say on the major geopolitical forum that is HN. Da svidania.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    I am not sure I see the contradiction here at all. If the two issues are related, it is in a very tangential manner. I mean no offense, but it sounds like a talking points and not like an actual argument.
    - atq2119 5y ago
      The contradiction is asking for help from the EU on the one hand while not accepting the EU's rulings on the other hand. What GP is criticizing is this attitude of trying to get representation without taxation, to put it in US terms.
- belval 5y ago
  > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. From the guidelines
  - danielEM 5y ago
    Ok, thanks for pointing why I got flagged and -2 points. Just for your record, Sasha is not Polish name at all, but is one of most popular russian one, that already shows some attitude at least and in conjunction to fuzzying discussion by introducing new focus elements and or discrediting actions by pointing to non related actions, that all is to me VERY suspecious. And need to point that too - all of it can be purely accidental. It is just too often it is not, that led me to try to save you from that crap. Will not do it again, sorry.
Krasnol 5y ago
Polands politics currently are an irony to history.
tomaszs 5y ago
Germany, or Italy also ignored UE Court of justice rulings. Nothing new.
- that_guy_iain 5y ago
  I don't think you're part of the cool crowd until you've ignored some legal thing the EU requires.
- eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 5y ago
  Can you please tell which rulings were ignored by Germany and Italy? I'm curious.
  - throwawinsider 5y ago
    Germany and Italy recurrently ignore the Stability Pact rules, thereby threatening the fiscal and monetary stability of the region. But when you are Germany or Italy, no one will complain and no judge will chase you.
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      I had an Italian farmer explain the Italian attitude to rules and regulations 10ish years ago. His view was that breaking rules and regulations was a national pastime and seeing what you could get away with was part the fun. That’s how he explained the popularity of Silvio Berlusconi too - “of course the guy is a cheat and a fraud, but he is cheating for us now”. I’m unsure if these views were in any way representative but I found them interesting.
  - ptaipale 5y ago
    In addition to fiscal rules mentioned in other comments, an interesting case was the confiscation of face masks in spring 2020, i.e. blocking of free movement of goods inside EU. This was when we were desperately needing to have masks for use in hospitals. Germany took them in transit. It wasn't only Germany, though; also France stopped shipments of masks to Sweden. And there were other cases in the big key member states. https://www.svd.se/frankrike-beslagtar-masker-fran-svenskt-foretag https://www.svd.se/frankrike-beslagtar-masker-fran-svenskt-f... Normally such freight would go via hubs in Germany, for instance; to avoid Germany confiscating masks, my country (Finland) hired planes to import masks directly from China, without using the hubs in Germany.
allendoerfer 5y ago
There is no irony. Poland being a difficult EU member has nothing to do with their plane being diverted.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  Not with the plane itself, true. It is the reaction and total lack of self-consciousness that is beyond me. “Screw you and your rules. Also, help!”
gjsman-1000 5y ago
What makes this really complex for the EU is that they have tried to punish Poland for this and other various things, but a sanction requires the agreement of all member states, and a certain state named Hungary has an implicit agreement with Poland to never vote in agreement with the EU, and Poland the same for Hungary. As a result, the EU tries to sanction Poland, but Hungary won't agree and so the sanction fails. Try to sanction Hungary? Poland is out, sanction fails. I have to admit that it's clever on Poland and Hungary's part, as it lets them selectively ignore some of the EU's more (from their perspective) overbearing rulings.
- loceng 5y ago
  Sounds like they need to update the law somehow to prevent this. I can't quite figure out the starting logic for this though.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    But to update the law (because this sanctioning mechanism is so deep in EU law), you would need agreement from all member states. You can see where this is going... The EU won't try it because Hungary and Poland would obviously vote against it. And the cycle continues. The current EU plan is to hope that Hungary or Poland's governments get replaced with one that won't support the other, and then consider doing the sanctions. The other EU plan is to pursue other punishments that don't require a full sanction and basically cause as much hurt as possible even if they can't do the ideal remedy.
    - pilsetnieks 5y ago
      They already tried to do a runaround when Poland and Hungary threatened to veto a Covid recovery fund - basically, just set it up anyway for the rest of the 25 as a side deal that wouldn't involve the two and they wouldn't get any funds. In the end Poland and Hungary acquiesced, yet in a petty dictatorial fashion claimed they had won by forcing the EU to include them.
      - 5y ago
rasz 5y ago
Germany ignores EU all the time, currently building second pipeline bypassing other EU states in accordance with Putin-Merkel pact, the second act to Molotov-Ribbentrop.

danielEM 5y ago

Nice try Sasha! Wondering if you represent Russian or Belarussian regime? Only irony here is that in discussion on the topic of journalist who is facing now death penalty you're bringing somewhat important (but not in this discussion) ecological topic.

rich_sasha 5y ago
Ermmm... what? The genuine irony is how Poland, my home country, within 24hrs went from telling the EU to go stuff itself to begging for help, and seemingly even without noticing the contradiction. For the journalist, I feel very sorry (I don’t know much about him tbh but death penalty is excessive for any crime, even more so for one imagined by Lukashenko). This doesn’t preclude making a wider observation. But surely, this is what my Russian masters told me to say on the major geopolitical forum that is HN. Da svidania.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  I am not sure I see the contradiction here at all. If the two issues are related, it is in a very tangential manner. I mean no offense, but it sounds like a talking points and not like an actual argument.
  - atq2119 5y ago
    The contradiction is asking for help from the EU on the one hand while not accepting the EU's rulings on the other hand. What GP is criticizing is this attitude of trying to get representation without taxation, to put it in US terms.
belval 5y ago
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. From the guidelines
- danielEM 5y ago
  Ok, thanks for pointing why I got flagged and -2 points. Just for your record, Sasha is not Polish name at all, but is one of most popular russian one, that already shows some attitude at least and in conjunction to fuzzying discussion by introducing new focus elements and or discrediting actions by pointing to non related actions, that all is to me VERY suspecious. And need to point that too - all of it can be purely accidental. It is just too often it is not, that led me to try to save you from that crap. Will not do it again, sorry.

Krasnol 5y ago

Polands politics currently are an irony to history.

tomaszs 5y ago

Germany, or Italy also ignored UE Court of justice rulings. Nothing new.

that_guy_iain 5y ago
I don't think you're part of the cool crowd until you've ignored some legal thing the EU requires.
eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 5y ago
Can you please tell which rulings were ignored by Germany and Italy? I'm curious.
- throwawinsider 5y ago
  Germany and Italy recurrently ignore the Stability Pact rules, thereby threatening the fiscal and monetary stability of the region. But when you are Germany or Italy, no one will complain and no judge will chase you.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    I had an Italian farmer explain the Italian attitude to rules and regulations 10ish years ago. His view was that breaking rules and regulations was a national pastime and seeing what you could get away with was part the fun. That’s how he explained the popularity of Silvio Berlusconi too - “of course the guy is a cheat and a fraud, but he is cheating for us now”. I’m unsure if these views were in any way representative but I found them interesting.
- ptaipale 5y ago
  In addition to fiscal rules mentioned in other comments, an interesting case was the confiscation of face masks in spring 2020, i.e. blocking of free movement of goods inside EU. This was when we were desperately needing to have masks for use in hospitals. Germany took them in transit. It wasn't only Germany, though; also France stopped shipments of masks to Sweden. And there were other cases in the big key member states. https://www.svd.se/frankrike-beslagtar-masker-fran-svenskt-foretag https://www.svd.se/frankrike-beslagtar-masker-fran-svenskt-f... Normally such freight would go via hubs in Germany, for instance; to avoid Germany confiscating masks, my country (Finland) hired planes to import masks directly from China, without using the hubs in Germany.

allendoerfer 5y ago

There is no irony. Poland being a difficult EU member has nothing to do with their plane being diverted.

rich_sasha 5y ago
Not with the plane itself, true. It is the reaction and total lack of self-consciousness that is beyond me. “Screw you and your rules. Also, help!”

gjsman-1000 5y ago

What makes this really complex for the EU is that they have tried to punish Poland for this and other various things, but a sanction requires the agreement of all member states, and a certain state named Hungary has an implicit agreement with Poland to never vote in agreement with the EU, and Poland the same for Hungary. As a result, the EU tries to sanction Poland, but Hungary won't agree and so the sanction fails. Try to sanction Hungary? Poland is out, sanction fails. I have to admit that it's clever on Poland and Hungary's part, as it lets them selectively ignore some of the EU's more (from their perspective) overbearing rulings.

loceng 5y ago
Sounds like they need to update the law somehow to prevent this. I can't quite figure out the starting logic for this though.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  But to update the law (because this sanctioning mechanism is so deep in EU law), you would need agreement from all member states. You can see where this is going... The EU won't try it because Hungary and Poland would obviously vote against it. And the cycle continues. The current EU plan is to hope that Hungary or Poland's governments get replaced with one that won't support the other, and then consider doing the sanctions. The other EU plan is to pursue other punishments that don't require a full sanction and basically cause as much hurt as possible even if they can't do the ideal remedy.
  - pilsetnieks 5y ago
    They already tried to do a runaround when Poland and Hungary threatened to veto a Covid recovery fund - basically, just set it up anyway for the rest of the 25 as a side deal that wouldn't involve the two and they wouldn't get any funds. In the end Poland and Hungary acquiesced, yet in a petty dictatorial fashion claimed they had won by forcing the EU to include them.
    - 5y ago

rasz 5y ago

Germany ignores EU all the time, currently building second pipeline bypassing other EU states in accordance with Putin-Merkel pact, the second act to Molotov-Ribbentrop.