howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Courtesy of the Telegraph, this has been coming for some time.
EU member states that fail to live up the European Union’s democratic values could find parts of their EU subsidies being “frozen” until they mend their ways, The Telegraph understands. Under proposals to be unveiled in Brussels this week by Guenther Oettinger, the EU’s budget commissioner, Eastern EU states like Poland and Hungary could feel a financial squeeze if they were deemed to have failed to live up to the founding values of the EU. The move comes after pressure from liberal groups in the European Parliament and leading western powers like France and Germany, who want to find a mechanism to put pressure on recalcitrant member states. “The precise details are still to be worked out, but the proposal will include the temporary freezing of funds in order to motivate a change of behaviour among states,” said an EU source briefed on the document.
Poland and Hungary are both major recipients of EU ‘structural funds’ which are designed to narrow the gap between rich and poor member states, each receiving €5.5bn and €2.7bn respectively a year. Sources said the threat to freeze access to funding for projects could also include agricultural subsidies, but would not include student programmes like Erasmus to avoid punishing citizens for the misdeeds of their governments. Reports also suggest that new formulas for calculating payments will mean that southern EU states, who tend to adhere closer to liberal values, will receive higher payments when the next 7-year budget cycle begins in 2021. The decision to link EU payments to ‘good behaviour’ is highly controversial and risks deepening the stand-off between western Europe and the populist governments in Warsaw and Budapest.
Tensions have deepened over the last two years after eastern EU countries refused to accept refugee resettlement quotas following the 2015 migrant crisis, and Poland introduced judicial reforms judged anti-democratic by the EU. Poland is currently battling Brussels over an ‘Article 7’ disciplinary procedure for breaches of EU commitments to maintain the ‘rule of law’, but is protected from serious punishment by a Hungarian promise to veto any sanctions. EU sources said the plan to explicitly link EU payments to democratic standards was in part driven by a French and German desire to have a less draconian and more flexible mechanism for pressuring states that were falling short. They added that the Commission would have to negotiate a system for deciding when payments would be frozen - but leading western states, like Germany, want it based on majority voting to avoid the kind of protective vetoes that have neutered the Article 7 process.
However an Eastern EU diplomatic source said that any attempt to connect funds to the “proper functioning of the judicial system in a member state” would be a matter of serious concern, raising questions about fairness and due process. “Who would assess the state of the judicial system and on what grounds? Wouldn’t there be a risk of political pressure and arbitrariness in such an assessment? Our position will depend on the shape of the proposal, but the budget must be governed by the law, not by arbitrariness,” the source said. Liberal forces have become increasingly agitated that states like Poland, Hungary but also Bulgaria and Romania - who joined in 2007 - are flouting EU norms with impunity, revelling in what Mr Orban has called “illiberal democracy”.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
the 6 quid a country visa will help out the poorer countrys.
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,070
Yup. Dreadful people these Eastern Europeans for suggesting that on the whole they would like to live surrounded by people who are a bit like them. Probably racist. Thank goodness the rest of the world is
much more enlightened.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-43877568"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Hungary and Poland knew the rules when they joined up, if they don't want to play along they should pay back the money given to them.
Guest 1713- Registered: 14 Mar 2016
- Posts: 110
Perhaps this issue will make the citizens of those countries push for what us British didesign? Tell the European union to sod off and stop interferring
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Sorry to say this Albert but I am struggling with your statement, do you not think that anyone that signs up to a club is responsible in accepting the downside as well as enjoying the benefits?
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
Them country will not accept the Islamic hoards. they have seen the mess in the rest of Europe
Guest 1713 likes this
Guest 1713- Registered: 14 Mar 2016
- Posts: 110
Howard Heathrow took us into the common market first the good of trade European cohesion etc.. unfortunately over the decades it morphed into something pretty dictatorial . Merkel for example is doing her best to ruin Germany by opening the flood gates .
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Courtesy of the Times.
A nationalist anti-immigration party with its roots in the white supremacy movement has surged into the lead in the Swedish election campaign in a backlash against the country’s liberal asylum and migration policies. The Sweden Democrats have become a focus for anger about gang crime in city centre immigrant communities and the influx of asylum seekers in 2015-16. The party has been modernised by its youthful leader Jimmie Akesson to appeal to a wider cross section of voters with policies which include a referendum on EU membership.
The party is now on the verge of causing an upset in Swedish politics after its support was put at 25.6 per cent in the latest opinion poll, ahead of 21.2 per cent for the Social Democrats — the centre-left party which has received the biggest vote at every election for a century. Traditional centre-left and centre-right parties have tried to ignore the Sweden Democrats for years but the mainstream conservative Moderate party has said it could work with it on issues such as immigration. That means Mr Akesson, 39, is set to become the kingmaker after the September 9 election and could be instrumental in Its anti-immigration message found a wider audience after Sweden took in 163,000 asylum seekers in 2015, more than any other European country per capita. Sweden’s foreign-born population has risen from 11 to 18 per cent in under two decades.
Mr Akesson blames liberal immigration policies for the rise in gang violence in Stockholm, Malmo and Gothenburg. In 2011 only 17 people were killed by firearms in Sweden but in 2017 there were more than 300 shootings, leaving 41 dead and over 100 injured. “We are prepared to bring down any government we think is not leading Sweden in the right direction,” Mr Akesson said. His policies include funding migrants to return to their homeland and severely restricting new arrivals. He is also determined to push for “Swexit”, saying that the EU is a “large web of corruption where no one has control over anything”.ousting the current Social Democrat-Green administration in favour of a centre-right coalition. “The Sweden Democrats’ voters are very unhappy with Swedish immigration policy and do not trust politicians. Otherwise they are normal Swedes with a job and families,” said Anders Sannerstedt from Lund University. Much of the success of the Sweden Democrats is credited to Mr Akesson, who became leader in 2005 and set about transforming its image.
