Maybe a few others tell you, too?
The President of the unelected executive arm of the European Union (EU) has vowed to block all right wing populists from power across the continent, shortly after acquiring the power to exert “far-reaching sanctions” on elected governments.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, promised to exclude Norbert Hofer, the leader of Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), from all EU decision-making if elected ahead of yesterday’s presidential vote.
“There will be no debate or dialogue with the far-right,” the liberal bureaucrat told AFP.
"Your elections do not count unless we approve of the winners." Yeah, that'll go over well.
However, as of 2014, the Commission was handed a batch of new powers
that it could plausibly use to do just this – powers already being
mobilised against Poland’s elected, conservative leaders.
The Commission can now trigger a “rule of law mechanism” (Article 7 TEU) against nations
it perceives as deviating from “the common constitutional traditions of
all Member States.” Ultimately, “far-reaching sanctions” can be
exerted, and a country can be stripped of all voting rights in the EU
and have funding blocked.
In January this year, Frans Timmermans, the first ever unelected
Commission “vice president,” who is in charge of “human rights,” triggered
the mechanism for the first time against Poland’s government which came
to power in a record-breaking, landslide election in 2015.
And Poland is basically telling them to pucker up.
Considering Poland- and a few others- have serious concerns about Russia, and probably have military forces each capable of kicking the ass of most of the rest of the EU if need be, threatening them might not be real productive. They've been under socialist rule, and they didn't like it. The EUnuchs might try remembering that.
Block them from taking power.
ReplyDeleteThis is a case of the crabs in the bucket making sure no one escapes.