“MEP Guy Verhofstadt frothed that Orbán’s emergency powers are out of “Putin’s playbook” and an “abomination of all that’s European.””
Guy Verhofstadt? The man who openly called for the EU to become an empire in a speech to the (cheering) Lib Dem conference? A man that regularly calls for states to give up their powers to unelected officials in Brussels whines about elected officials creating new powers?
Vesselina Zaitzeva
1 year ago
Good and level-headed article by William Nattrass. Always a pleasure to read his articles, highly informative and balanced. Thank you!
Peter B
1 year ago
You might be tempted to conclude that the EU really doesn’t like democracy. Especially when it comes up with the “wrong answers”. Their slogan realy should be “Vote again. Vote better”.
The idea that there are “common European values” that must be enforced is bordering on totalitarianism. Yes, there must be common rules for the organisation and these should be enforced (though they are frequently not). But enforcing “values” is effectively attempting to police thought. The EU seems oblivious to the experiement on this in Eastern Europe from 1945-1989 and tone deaf to why those countries do not support it.
I very much doubt that many of us would enjoy living in Orban’s Hungary. But it is a different country with a different history and culture and this appears to be what the Hungarians want.
Fran Martinez
1 year ago
If the authors of the constitution did not put a war clause, maybe it was because they didn’t want one. After all, they surely knew about wars when they wrote it. The same goes for pandemics by the way.
“MEP Guy Verhofstadt frothed that Orbán’s emergency powers are out of “Putin’s playbook” and an “abomination of all that’s European.””
Guy Verhofstadt? The man who openly called for the EU to become an empire in a speech to the (cheering) Lib Dem conference? A man that regularly calls for states to give up their powers to unelected officials in Brussels whines about elected officials creating new powers?
Good and level-headed article by William Nattrass. Always a pleasure to read his articles, highly informative and balanced. Thank you!
You might be tempted to conclude that the EU really doesn’t like democracy. Especially when it comes up with the “wrong answers”. Their slogan realy should be “Vote again. Vote better”.
The idea that there are “common European values” that must be enforced is bordering on totalitarianism. Yes, there must be common rules for the organisation and these should be enforced (though they are frequently not). But enforcing “values” is effectively attempting to police thought. The EU seems oblivious to the experiement on this in Eastern Europe from 1945-1989 and tone deaf to why those countries do not support it.
I very much doubt that many of us would enjoy living in Orban’s Hungary. But it is a different country with a different history and culture and this appears to be what the Hungarians want.
If the authors of the constitution did not put a war clause, maybe it was because they didn’t want one. After all, they surely knew about wars when they wrote it. The same goes for pandemics by the way.