Hungary Veto on Poland Sanctions may not happen

Was truffling around the place while I had my mid-morning cuppa and found something interesting.

MEPs called for the triggering of Article 7 against Hungary in May last year. On that basis, the process of triggering Article 7 against Hungary begins this month.

Timeline is as follows:

March 2018 Draft report will be presented to the Civil Liberties Committee
June 2018 Committee to vote
September 2018 European Parliament to vote

Clearly in light of recent events there is likely to be the necessary support for that vote to pass thus Hungary will be unable to block sanctions on Poland as they themselves will be subject to Article 7.

Well, are we gonna waste our reading power on a forum in thing that might or might not happen? BOO!

The EU needs a serious reality check and remodeling or Poland has to leave it.

Thats old news with hungary. Theyve began preparations to sanction hungary but havent begun proceedings really. Besdies a bunch of other countries including the 3 baltics just affirmed theyll support poland. Also czechy is a supporter of poland and its likely other countries like austria and slovakia would vote against article 7. Eus article 7 is doomed and they know it part of which why they said atleast a year if not two ago theyll also launch artile 7 against hungary pnly to be met with populiat support from other east euro nations. Pl amd hungary will have no trouble finding other eu nations to back em up. The eu knows article 7 has failed before it even begins so now theyre going after structural and development funds for pl amd hungary. Problem is even there theyre split as theor opinions constantly change amd even timmermans saod he wouldnt support cutting off eu funds for pl. Although he as well as others may change their mind. However idk if this would require a vote whetger to divert already earmarked eu funds. If not brussels and merkel wont have trouble cutting eu funds granted poland already got just about all it was gonna get so the post 2020 funds wont rly matter as by then were expected to be net contributor

Well that's what I'm showing you, that proceedings are beginning this month.


Don't be too sure about that. Firstly although we talk about a 'country' voting, MEPs cast individual votes and a majority of MEPs who chose to vote, from every single one of the countries you mention, voted in favour of the resolution against Poland back in November. Secondly MEPs belong to internal political parties, the most influential of which is the EPP and is strongly in favour of sanctions against Poland. You also have to look at who abstained at the last vote ie preferred to sit on the fence and which party they belonged to. That gives an indication of how they will vote if push comes to shove. If I'm a member of the EPP and abstained last time, my colleagues will bring pressure to bear on me next time round to increase the possibililty of unanimous agreement on Article 7.

Also another vote was taken earlier this month on the Commission decision to activate Article 7 and once again a majority of the MEPs of the Baltic States, Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia voted in agreement with the motion for resolution that the Parliament Reiterates the positions and concerns expressed in its resolution of 15 November 2017; calls on the Commission to closely monitor developments in the other areas of concern highlighted by Parliament and to take appropriate action;

Their heads of state can waffle on about supporting Poland but the reality is rather different. Fine words butter no parsnips :))

Thus far, Hungary might well be the most conservative, as well as right-wing, nation throughout Europe, more the Poland.

Poland would veto any shenanigans against Hungary, so the whole idea is stillborn.

Vermin coming, see, my sisters and brothers. Vermin always found way to come to Poland.


Good morning. Welcome to old war.

Apparently there are legal loopholes around this, if both countries are subject to the first step in the Article 7 process.

They will definitely be subject to Article 7 - however they will have to contend with numerous nationalistic PM's who are already breaking from EU, upsetting the entire V4, upsetting all the new nationalistic PMs that are in power all over PLUS with the Polish ruling party which has 3x the support of the opposition,. Even if it halved it'd still be huge. The EU-phile opposition is over in Poland- Poles don't trust them now and its the same with Hungary, Czechy, much of the Baltics, Austria's and Italy are going populist now too. Merkel's threatened by AfD and even the Swiss are starting to assert their sovereignty as far as migrants. Yes, some are weary of breaking too far from Europe but nonetheless people want their dignity - especially those in the rural countryside and the nationalistic youth. If anything this would whip up support even more if the EU pushes too far. There's 12 EU countries now that are against the domination of the German/French dominated EU.

The worst that'll happen out of Article 7 is the PL government may have to stop certain reforms in which case they'll pass them another way if they really want it.

The EU can vote and squabble all it wants - what matters is what they can actually enforce on half the eastern EU countries with tens of millions of people leaning in a patriotic direction with their PMs in office and populist parties large and in charge.

Europe feels herself bombarded by liberally imposed "empathy fatigue" and has unfortunately decided to swerve ever more to the right in order to avoid getting hit broadside by even more social programs, seen as bleeding the state dry. Once the left lane has been cleared of an ever increasing "pile up" of wrecked trash in the form of the growing number of dependents, she'll hopefully get back on course.

Hate to admit it, but it's true.

Don't get too exited, marxists. The whole "voting" likely won't happen and If it does, there will be far more vote "against" than one. Unfortunately, as that would be a good opportunity to finally leave this whole nonsense.

Even better to be booted out with nothing to repay,

And you think the EU would just let Poland leave without paying?


Hungary is not to be trusted, the Czechs don't trust and won't ally with Poland against the EU, Austria won't ally with Poland over Germany, and Italy will want Poland to take migrants to share out the burden. Remember that populism also means doing what is best for themselves, which is usually not in Poland's best interest. What happens if the Italians demand that Poland either accepts refugees or they will block making fiscal transfers to Poland?

As for the Baltics, they don't have populist governments - the Estonian government is centrist, the Latvian one is centre-right, and the Lithuanians are centrist too.

Poland has everything to lose from populism in the CEE region. The government has no real allies except Hungary, and even the Hungarians will do what's best for Hungary and not for Poland.


Indeed. The devil is in the detail, and the detail is that there's no sign whatsoever that these countries will support Poland over the EU. A few public statements are meaningless, as the Hungarians showed with Tusk's election.

Yes if booted out.

Before booting expect vermin to support separatist movements within Poland. Vermin would try to grab as much as possible, money, people, land. You know how it goes

Which means Poland, with an economy relying on cheap exports and services, is instantly in deep trouble.

EU uber alles. Without EU, "deep trouble" :))) Ah you propagandists...

Today`s Poland`s politicians are sold souls. Jagilonian Kings were Kings. They knew where to invest.

No EU member can be booted out. You're reading too much of the Daily Express with its sensationalist and totally inaccurate headlines. There exists no mechanism to throw anyone out of the EU. That could change of course but it would have to be debated, discussed, formulated etc and would probably take a few years to finalize.


Why is it that anybody who objects to the idea of an authoritarian right wing government dismantling the modern Polish state and setting themselves up to govern forever, is a 'Marxist'. As far as I'm concerned the man was first cousin to Lucifer. Like most champions of the 'worker' including Lenin and Uncle Joe, he never did a day's hard graft in his life and his Utopian theories caused untold misery and hardship to billions. You should read about Welsh factory owner, Robert Owen, a TRUE champion of the working man who actually improved the quality of their lives with his social reforms including the eight hour working day, and that was back in the early 1800s.

Now, back to the EU. The voting I'm referring to is the vote on a resolution against Hungary and that will most definitely take place and will pass as the majority of MEPs are concerned not only about Poland but also about Hungary. Regarding Poland,we are still only at Article 7 stage one. After the 20 March deadline, another two thirds majority vote will be needed to move to Stage 2. The Parliament already has that. Then there will be another vote which requires a four fifths majority, that's the tricky one as it depends on those who've abstained up to that point, climbing down from the fence. The final vote would be for sanctions and that's the one that requires unanimity. That probably won't be until December of this year and by that time Hungary will also be subject to Article 7 which could prevent it from voting. Incidentally Romania is also in line for Article 7.

The good thing to come out of all this mess, is that now that's it's taken the plunge with Poland, the Commission seems to be more comfortable with invoking Article 7. They were guilty of being head in the sand with Hungary and this is the result, a divided EU in a crisis situation. So I suspect that from now on, they'll be much quicker to react to backsliding in other EU states - there's also no doubt that this will ultimately lead to mechanisms being introduced to expel rogue states from the Union.

Well lets hope the polish people have a vote on all this and the toothless joke article 7 , I know what the answer will be.

Polish people do not want the EU poking its nose into Polish law an politics , even with the law changes Poland is a long way from being a totalitarian state ,

Atch ,There are no Russian tanks on the polish border to come to the rescue of a rouge Government, I think you underestimate the Polish people if you think we or our army would allow any kind of regime to form in Poland , we would disembowel it literally.

Its the daily mail you need to read if you want all the facts lol,

Anyway I am all light and fluffy today hope you are feeling the same.

You do know about the 'reforms' of the Polish army enacted since PIS came to power don't you Dolno? Senior figures have been replaced with inexperienced individuals selected for their loyalty to PIS. And there are further changes on the cards. These things creep in gradually until a country is paralyzed. And are you really saying that you have no problem with a Poland where a military coup may be necessary?? Do you want to live in a Banana Republic?

Individual changes on their own in the area of policing, army, judiciary, education etc may not be necessarily sinister and may not be any worse than some other European countries which are borderline democracies like Italy, BUT, take them all together and the picture is not pretty. There is a very methodical process taking place to insert PIS supporters into all the key areas of Polish adminstration and to restrict civil liberties.

The new judicial reforms for example mean that any judgement given in a case, will never be final and can be reopened at any time and that's also retrospective in respect of cases that have already been dealt with in the previous 20 years. Extremely sinister.

I'm surprised at you Dolno. You're clearly an intelligent person with plenty of life experience and from growing up in the UK you have imbibed much of the principles of a modern democracy. You remember Britain from the days when "men were men, women were manholes and we had no truck with the Middlesex regiment" :D Even in those more conservative times, Britain was firmly democratic with a high tolerance for individualism and a high degree of personal freedom for its citizens. You certainly won't have that in Poland if it carries on down this road.

Yes I'm also feeling fluffy, especially as it's St Patrick's Day tomorrow :)) Wrap the green flag 'round me boys!

Atch, I see all you have written as good,

We don't want army personnel who have history serving PRL, we need new modern officers , sandhurst and ocs.

Yes we need to be able to review old cases , some nasty pieces of PRL work got off lightly, good that they will have to squirm, infact its good that any criminal will have to watch over their shoulder for 20 years.


Yep and I watched it turn into a crime ridden unsafe cesspit, I don't want the same for Poland.

Yep I will get some Guinness in and raise a glass to the good old days down the limerick pub circa 1975.

Sounds like a nice idea but impossible in practice, the best solution (minus evidence of actual crimes or treason) is to let time and attrition take its toll.

To be quite honest, the desire to dismiss officers wholesale and bringing in inexperienced loyalists is a planned move to plunder the resources of the state (did the 15 million zloty credit card bill Macierewicz racked up not alarm you? it should)

How much money has Macierewicz plundered from the public tills on his personal torture **** fetish (aka smolensk "investigation" which has yielded nothing)?

Does the transparent attempt to stuff election oversight by loyalists to a single part not bother you?

Yes, the constant calls for EU "unity" are a pain when it means "do what Germany and/or unelected technocrats have decided" and Atch seems to have a lot more tolerance for that nonsense than you or I do but what PiS is doing is an attack on the basic fabric of civil society and a return to the worst practices of the PRL with nationalist and church slogans instead of communist ones.

It's not terrible at this second but it's getting worse and the obvious and transparent goal of PiS is to make delegalize resistance once a critical mass of the population want them out.

You need a balance of experienced and new blood - and the new blood is no use at all if it's selected on the basis of loyalty to PIS. In any case the last of those who served in the PRL would all be coming up to retirement age quite soon.


The judicial system is not just about criminals. It's about civil and commercial arbitration as well.


That's a bit of an exaggeration. Do you really believe that the Cotswolds, the Yorkshire dales, the Devon and Cornwall coastline etc are cess pits of crime?? And is there honey still for tea...........

You have made some very sound comments and observations, but what is the alternative? have Poland follow the same political road that Britain and Germany have taken, yes they have made money but their society has almost disintegrated and to be honest its not nice to live in those places I sold up in Austria full of beggars now.

You have to admit what's happening in Poland is something different, we shall see how things unfold, the government can be voted out at the next election if the people don't like it.

What gets me on this forum is that there are many people who are vocal and passionate about the state of current Polish politics BUT even after decades of living here they do nothing about citizenship so have no vote or say as to what happens, go figure i don't get it?


No we don't want them Poland needs new blood and modern tactics, how to bash people over the head during Marshall law has no place here.


Lol Atch that's where the elite and Jeremy Clarkson live with their gated communities and private security, I still have a place in the UK (where normal people live) and there have been three murders within two miles in the last two years, guess how many murders there have been in the last four years within ten miles of my place here.

Now there's the rub. The judicial reforms effectively fill the Supreme Court with PIS supporters - and the Supreme Court validates the election results........


I'm guessing it's in Midsomer! Bring back Tom Barnaby, that's what I say :))


Well ironically that's precisely what your'e going to get a few years down the road if you carry on as you're doing now. There's been a touch of it already with the actions of the police against protesters, very rough handling of peaceful individuals.

And is also overseen by European Commission good luck trying to fiddle that one.

@Atch


Erm not just now maybe later .....

The problem is that PiS (and the EU for that matter) is selling a false dichotomy.... post-modern express to multicultual hell (hello Sweden!) or far right extreme nationalism (PRL with nationalism and catholicism instead of communism)

Don't buy the false dichotomy, there are a lot of other alternatives.

My priority is civil society (more or less impossible to maintain under conditions of extreme cultural and religious diversity) but also more or less impossible to maintain under the conditions that PiS are setting out.

That's news to me. I'm not aware that the Commission oversees elections in EU member states nor does it validate election results. And it's ironic that you should be citing an EU institution as a guarantee of democracy in Poland, seeing as you'd prefer Poland to Polexit!

Yea but they are miles away from being far right, and Catholicism is ingrained in the nation, I know there are more people tuning their backs on the old ways but thats their problem, they can leave if they don't like it same way I left Britain because I didnt like it.