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No vetos by 2040, sounds really good. Then maybe things can move along.
I’m all for getting rid of the stupid veto. But this path to do it, seems dodgy as hell. If anyone takes this stuff to court, it may not hold up.
SPD and Clever are opposites
idk if I want a United States of Europe kind of situation where Ursula von der Leyen does Executive Orders and casually establishes fascism, tbh.
This is a strawman, also
Black-and-white fallacy
The black-and-white fallacy is a logical error that happens when an argument presents only two extreme choices as the only possible options, while ignoring other valid alternatives.Obviously we don’t want what the US has, this is not that.
It makes it possible, while right now it isn’t. That alone should give people some pause to think about why the EU was designed like it is.
The way the EU is designed right now, One country like Hungary, can hold the whole EU hostage.
The proposed change isn’t perfect, that’s impossible, but it’s far better than what we’re stuck with now.
Now who’s using the black and white fallacy.
Freedom of association explicitly allows Hungary to be kicked out.
Freedom of association encompasses both an individual’s right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membership based on certain criteria. It can be described as the right of a person coming together with other individuals to collectively express, promote, pursue and/or defend common interests.[1]
Freedom of association is both an individual right and a collective right, guaranteed by all modern and democratic legal systems, including the United States Bill of Rights, article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and international law, including articles 20 and 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 22 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work by the International Labour Organization also ensures these rights.
That wiki page is about Human’s Freedom-of-association, it doesn’t apply to the EU.
You can’t apply human rights to say, Hungary.
One is a person, the other is a country…
the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membership based on certain criteria.
Freedom of association is both an individual right and a collective right
But clearly your understanding of political theory is lacking, so arguing beyond this is pointless.
It does not apply in this category. If it was that easy it would have been at the very least a discussion point in the media, it is not.
Well, that’s certainly a novel interpretation of the ECHR. It’s especially novel since states aren’t people, and the ECHR harshly restricts any limits on freedom of association. The ECHR also specifically binds the signatory countries, and not the EU or its organs.
It’s also quite funny to see this rake, since literally the entire EU is convinced there is no mechanism to remove a country, but you, some rando on Lemmy, thinks they have found the loophole.
The ECHR isn’t what grants EU nations FfA. But the fact the ECHR protects it shows that it’s a fundamental European value.
The EU is not convinced of anything, it’s politically convenient to not threaten the stability of what is still regarded as the European experiment.
This is no loophole, but a fundamental value of liberalism and democracy. Perhaps you should read more than just the first few sentences of a Wikipedia article before arguing politics in future.
You see Hungarians are afraid of being kicked out of the EU, and because of that they can’t be kicked out
That is a false narrative. There was always the option to kick Hungary out (the process exists, despite some people claiming it doesn’t). But Germany didn’t want that because the German car industry is using Hungary for cheap assembly of parts.
No you can’t just kick out Hungary that easily.
You’d have to disband and reform the EU to do that. This same channel did a video on how it would work if the EU wanted to kick them out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WADDH_g-95Q
Anyway, we didn’t want to kick them out, they stayed and it looks like it’s working out great now having them in, we don’t want people to think the EU will just ditch them if it gets tough.
This is simply nonsense. Politicians from larger countries (especially Germany) are pushing the idea that expulsion/suspension isn’t possible because they see it as an convenient argument to consolidate their power (and Orban’s labour supression politics to provide cheap labour to German car companies was also popular with them).
Do you have any source to back this up, this sounds like hogwash to me.
The fact that you said you could just kick them out, or even said it would be easy for them to rejoin, which is blatantly false. Makes it clear you don’t know what you’re talking about or acting in bad faith.
Suspension of rights under Article 7 requires unanimous approval of all
720members of the European Parliament. It’s pretty much impossible to actually apply.Edit: 698, obviously hungary is excluded.
Sanctions require only a 2/3s majority, and that’s proven to be incredibly difficult, as plenty of MEPs will see that one country being punished for their actions might lead to them being punished too.
This is not how I understand the requirements. As by a direct quote from an official EU website:
Article 354 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union lays down the voting procedures to be used by the main EU institutions when a Member State faces the application of Article 7. The country in question does not take part in the vote. It is not included in the calculation of the one third of countries required for the proposal or the four fifths required for the majority. Parliament’s consent requires a two-thirds majority.
The 4/5th super majority referrs to the concil and the 2/3rd to the parliarment. These are high requirements, but that seems reasonable given the severity of the result.
That’s for the “preventative measures” clause, article 7(1). The sanctions under 7(2), require more, but it seems unanimity is only required in the Council:
The procedure starts with a proposal made by one third of EU member states or by the Commission. The European Council then obtains the European Parliament’s consent. Provided the European Council’s members agree unanimously, the European Council may then determine that a member state is seriously and persistently breaching the values of the EU.
If that happens, the Council can decide to suspend some of the rights that derive from application of the treaties to the member state in question, including its voting rights. That decision is taken by a qualified majority.
So, if Hungary was still under Orban, such a vote likely wouldn’t pass today, since Czechia is also in the Council under PfE.
But you’re right, it’s less ridiculous than I thought.
They would have vetoed against being kicked out, probably …
The relevant article of the EU treaty explicity forbids that.
There are no executive orders. They’re just dropping from full approval to 60% approval to pass a law.
“Just”
Tell me you have no interest in democracy or liberalism without telling me you have no interest in democracy or liberalism.
Wut?
But one fascist country being able to hold all others hostage isn’t exactly great either.
Exactly, in this proposal you’d need 60% if countries and 60% of the population to vote to pass laws.
The current situation, one rogue EU country with 1% of the population could hold the entire EU hostage
This is simply false. There exist the option to kick states out. Quite explicitly for states that don’t follow the commonly agreed human rights standards and legal procedures.
Removing countries from the EU is not considered desirable. A country having a couple rough years shouldn’t erode that.
Imagine USA getting yeeted out of NATO for electing some dumb fuck who will be gone in 4 years. Wouldn’t have been necessary in 2016 and would have increased the damage trump does in the second term.
A united world cannot split easily or you will get a divided world. You must work together. Banning, excluding and exiling does immense harm.
They can easily rejoin when they get their act together and have strengthend their institutions to avoid this in the future.
Why should different standards count for existing members than those that want to join? That’s just hypocritical.
They can easily rejoin…
Brother what? You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about, or you’re trolling.
If they are existing members, they have already proven to fulfill the requirements. Hence it is theoretically easy for them to rejoin 🤷
Having a system where existing states can regress on vital criteria that were necessary to join with no real risk of expulsion just creates a system of impunity that enables veto abuse.
But clearly the problem isn’t the veto power, but that the system allows for such regression to happen in the first place.
Removing the veto power just enables for that impunity to fester and destroy the EU from within.
“Theoretically easy” lol.
Nothing in the EU is easy, especially with the Veto power.
They will Veto anything that wants to remove them. So the EU will literally have to disband to kick them out.
And if they wanted to rejoin, and the Veto was still in place, other countries would probably Veto them joining again.
I’m genuinely unsure if you have no idea what you’re talking about, or if you’re trolling or misguided, the Veto power is a big issue in the EU and is to a degree destroying it, because the EU can’t act unless literally everyone agrees.
You cannot easily join the union. Not can you divorce easily. That’s a many year process with significant changes and overhead. You need all commerce to adjust. You need travel to adjust. You need workers to adjust.
Leaving the EU was never baked in. Brexit was a Novum. As laws stand today you can only sanction them. And need all other countries to agree. This means if they have a single ally in another minor country this is not going to work.
Brexit was a novum sure, but mainly because they wanted to leave instead of being kicked out by the other members for which a process exists.
Edit: Partial correction: Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty existed since 2007 and makes provisions for voluntary withdraw from the EU. But it was afaik never applied before Brexit.
And in general, if you don’t want states to abuse their veto power you need to have something sufficiently painful for them as a consequence 🤷
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_the_European_Union
There is no legislated way for expulsion I can find.
The EU is still too slow. Agreement from 60 % of countries with 60 % of the population, rather than the existing 100 %, should be a good middle ground.
This doesn’t make anything faster. You still need to go through the same process. It only makes it easier for large countries to ignore smaller ones.
At most 40 % of the smaller ones. This is fine for foreign policy.
And yes, it’s faster overall because there is no process required to appease the countries that would veto.
Why would a smaller country want to join or stay in the EU if it is constantly over ruled by the larger countries? Implementing something like this will destroy the EU, not strengthen it.
As the video suggests, Montenegro might join even without veto powers
No, the video doesn’t say anything like that. A political party from Germany has suggested to make that a new rule. There is so far afaik no response by the Montenegri government on this.
But sure, they might feel strongarmed by Germany to agree anyways, but this is exactly the kind of precedence that will make other smaller countries in and outside the EU consider if it is really in their best interest to join or remain in the EU if it becomes just another means to excert legal and economic coercion by larger countries.
It’s not only the majority of people, but also the majority of countries
But think about the children!
