Poland's political crisis deepens

get ready for another six years,

The way things look, that's very unlikely and increasingly so by the day.

A bit of good news. The Forest Stewardship Council ( the international organisation responsible for export and sales of timber worldwide) is likely to ban prducts from Bialowieza due to illegal logging.

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Good. It should become a blanket ban on Polish wood until the law is complied with.

And the effect on the real world is around... zero.

Given the volume coming out of Bialowieza, it may as well be.

Started a thread yesterday on the rule of law situation but it seems to have been deleted by the Mods. Apparently it's not considered important enough to merit its own thread, nor does it appear to have been merged. However it's considered important enough to the EU Commission to be discussed by members again on 25 September. Member states were consulted yesterday about adding Poland to the agenda and so it came to pass.

Nothing very concrete is likely to emerge from it however. But an interesting possibility is the use of Article 258 as a kind of halfway house between doing nothing and Article 7.

"If the Commission considers that a Member State has failed to fulfil an obligation under the
Treaties, it shall deliver a reasoned opinion on the matter after giving the State concerned the
opportunity to submit its observations.

If the State concerned does not comply with the opinion within the period laid down by the
Commission, the latter may bring the matter before the Court of Justice of the European Union."

What the outcome of such a case might be in terms of stopping the rot is debatable. I mean what will the court actually DO as a result of officially finding that Poland is in breach of its obligations. Will it finally attempt to trigger Article 7? I suspect that the EU is stalling until the general election in Hungary which is only a few months away, maybe hoping that Orban will be unseated and that the Hungarian veto will be overridden. In the meantime they'll beaver away at working on the other members who are undecided at present. Nine member states already expressed official concerns in May this year at a United Nations meeting and urged Poland to desist from its present path. So that's nine who would probably be in favour of Article 7. Interestingly that nine included Czech Republic.

If Hungary persists with the veto then the only other option is to also charge Hungary with the same breaches, thus effectively excluding them from the voting process on Poland.

The problem in my view is that all of this will take forever and in the meantime PIS are going on their merry way doing a great deal of damage. If I were a Polish national and a supporter of EU membership I would be inclined to think, 'what's the point of being in a union that claims to uphold democracy but can't do anything to stop my country from dismantling it'.

This is probably the way forward.


Yes. Yet its opponents claim it's oppressive.

Basically, it's a waiting game at the moment. Sooner or later we'll see the straw that breaks the camel's back - the only question is what that outrage will be.

The EU may state that their new 'Defense Pact' is all about better protecting the European Union now that the UK has exited but ...........
The new EU "Defense Pact" could very well be about diversifying defense away from American influence, especially now that Trump is the US President, and EU neo - liberals in Brussels cringe at having Trump tell them what to spend on NATO...or else.

So far Poland has been one of the few who have met their financial obligations to NATO.
This new EU defense pact could put a major financial strain on Polish citizens.

theduran.com/military-schengen-eus-new-defense-pact-acts-to-reduce-dependence-on-american-military/

yeah great deal of damage - econonomic growth over 4 per cent - over 20 billion more in VAT taxes - the budget deficit probably 30 billion lower than planned - yes, indeed that's a great deal of damage - and not to mention that millions of previously poor families eventually can properly feed and clothe their children and some can even send them for a short vacation at the seaside - great deal of damage, I say

what is democracy Atch - the rule of lawyers or the rule of the people - it turns out people support PiS at the moment (over 40 per cent support in recent polls)

have you heard of the pathologies in the Polish judiciary Atch - I guess you haven't

Not really, it would have identical aims to NATO, and wouldn't require any new expenditure.

That's exactly what they did when they were in power. They did the exact same **** pis is doing now - stuffing courts, firing reporters they don't like, cutting funding to projects they don't agree with, etc. Only difference is they had the eus backing. That's it. And if you can't see the parallels then you're blind.

Now it's pis turn to do what they want. And as long as they're keeping middle eastern and african migrants out of Poland they have my vote, and millions of other poles.

Yarrrp I gottoa agree.

According to the Western press, with this most recent purge, for a party which calls herself "Law & Justice", apparently in Poland as we speak, there remains no longer either of them:-)

People, is there any indication that Duda wants to work on idea of Intermarium, as he promised? That`s the segment of Poland`s policy absolutely abandoned, I have feeling.

No one is going to give up their current borders to form Yugoslavia 2.0. There is ever increasing economic cooperation with other Slavic countries via v4/three seas though. The relationships with our Slavic neighbors were not maintained the way they should've been during the PO reign. Now that's changing though.

No, for sure. Yugoslavia was country that was from the start controlled by western Europeans and Vatican. Foreigners double-crossed Serbians and seized control over elements of internal antagonisms and main protagonists. When the moment came, they triggered their satellites, ruined Yugoslavia, harmed Serbians and dearly weakened Slavic South.

If we ever, or rather when, we form Intermarium, we should make sure that we rule ourselves. Not just to live in fantasy.