A stalwart standard of the illiberal right is poised to take over the presidency of a major EU body. It is a test for the EU's principles. If it still has any.
This is ridiculous. I want to know what Jansa has done, aide from building a media empire and trying to insert his cronies into the public media system. The author briefly mentions Muslims. Can you at least expound on that? Or the media claims. Being mean to journalists is not the same as, say, arresting them. Does Jansa do that? Or not?
Be specific. Is Jansa one of the European far-rightists who want Kemalism for Muslims but not for Christians? I'd like to know, since I think it's a self-destructive impulse that may yet create an opening for Kemalism in countries that haven't had it. Please, give us real, substantive analysis. Not this.
It’s not a European phenomenon; it’s a phenomenon impacting the entire Western world including the United States. See this article that appeared just today in the New York Times.
Who’s to blame for the collapse of the liberal world order? There’s plenty of blame to go around, but mostly it’s the liberals who’ve caused the world they revere so much to teeter on the cusp of extinction.
Given this kind of aligns with some of my comments to Monique regarding her interview, I will give a quick initial response.
First is even in true Federal systems like the US and Canada fighting illiberalism at the sub-national level can often be difficult and divisive. If you look through Canadian history there have been many "illiberal" leaders in the provinces like Maurice Duplessis in Quebec, William "Bible Bill" Aberhart in Alberta, various elements of the so-called "Family Compact" in Ontario along with so-called "Orange Order" govts also in Ontario. Also when I mean illiberal this isn't just plain vanilla illiberalism Duplessis and Aberhart were some seriously bad-ass dudes in favor of eugenics, 1930s era fascism, anti semitism, etc. While it is true that Canada Federal govt has never been "illiberal" there were definitely points in history when the Federal govt in Ottawa for political reasons did not push back as hard on the likes of Aberhart and Duplessis as people like Cosmopolitan Globalists like ourselves would now expect. Even in the US beyond just issues of segregation and civil rights you also have a history of corruption and illiberalism of people like Huey Long. So these are not easy problems to solve.
My second comment is what exactly does Jon and Claire want the EU to do about this. The EU does have real options but unless you are in the camp of someone like Sophie In't Veld(or myself) who actually wants the EU to have standing armies and police forces that could say criminally charge or remove someone like Jansa from office the EU doesn't have a lot of great options. One is the other member states could essentially demand that Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, and other illiberal countries simply "leave" the EU as the UK did but I don't think this would "solve" the problem and I don't get the feeling Jon and the others are calling for this.
On paper and this is something Sophie In't Veld talked about with Monique there is Article 7 of the EU Treaties that allows for a suspension of voting rights of countries that commit violations of fundamental rights. While there is some debate of the technicalities of invoking Article 7 i.e. whether Hungary and Poland can veto attempts to invoke it against the other I think the truth of the matter is there are at least a significant minority of EU member states most probably in the East who might very well dislike Orban and might even say so publically are very uncomfortable with the idea of the EU institutions coming in and removing Orban from power from outside which is what an Article 7 invocation would in part due(Yes Orban would still be in power in Hungary and Hungary would still be an EU MS but his EU voting rights would be taken away).
Another more specific option again to this particular circumstance is to eliminate the rotating Presidency system which in reality doesn't have much power and serves little purpose but again you run into the issue is you are perceived to be taking away power from the smaller more peripheral states in the EU and giving that power to the centre. I will also note in the years leading up to the UK exiting the EU the UK, in particular, was not that concerned with what was going on in Poland or Hungary and the British position is that these were basically domestic internal affairs for Poland and Hungary and none of the EU's business. I bring this up in part because I know Jon Nighswander thinks it was a huge blunder on the part of the EU to let the UK vote to leave but the UK still in the EU would probably be one of the biggest allies of Hungary and Poland.
This is ridiculous. I want to know what Jansa has done, aide from building a media empire and trying to insert his cronies into the public media system. The author briefly mentions Muslims. Can you at least expound on that? Or the media claims. Being mean to journalists is not the same as, say, arresting them. Does Jansa do that? Or not?
Be specific. Is Jansa one of the European far-rightists who want Kemalism for Muslims but not for Christians? I'd like to know, since I think it's a self-destructive impulse that may yet create an opening for Kemalism in countries that haven't had it. Please, give us real, substantive analysis. Not this.
It’s not a European phenomenon; it’s a phenomenon impacting the entire Western world including the United States. See this article that appeared just today in the New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/us/democracy-gop-democrats-sectarianism.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Who’s to blame for the collapse of the liberal world order? There’s plenty of blame to go around, but mostly it’s the liberals who’ve caused the world they revere so much to teeter on the cusp of extinction.
Given this kind of aligns with some of my comments to Monique regarding her interview, I will give a quick initial response.
First is even in true Federal systems like the US and Canada fighting illiberalism at the sub-national level can often be difficult and divisive. If you look through Canadian history there have been many "illiberal" leaders in the provinces like Maurice Duplessis in Quebec, William "Bible Bill" Aberhart in Alberta, various elements of the so-called "Family Compact" in Ontario along with so-called "Orange Order" govts also in Ontario. Also when I mean illiberal this isn't just plain vanilla illiberalism Duplessis and Aberhart were some seriously bad-ass dudes in favor of eugenics, 1930s era fascism, anti semitism, etc. While it is true that Canada Federal govt has never been "illiberal" there were definitely points in history when the Federal govt in Ottawa for political reasons did not push back as hard on the likes of Aberhart and Duplessis as people like Cosmopolitan Globalists like ourselves would now expect. Even in the US beyond just issues of segregation and civil rights you also have a history of corruption and illiberalism of people like Huey Long. So these are not easy problems to solve.
My second comment is what exactly does Jon and Claire want the EU to do about this. The EU does have real options but unless you are in the camp of someone like Sophie In't Veld(or myself) who actually wants the EU to have standing armies and police forces that could say criminally charge or remove someone like Jansa from office the EU doesn't have a lot of great options. One is the other member states could essentially demand that Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, and other illiberal countries simply "leave" the EU as the UK did but I don't think this would "solve" the problem and I don't get the feeling Jon and the others are calling for this.
On paper and this is something Sophie In't Veld talked about with Monique there is Article 7 of the EU Treaties that allows for a suspension of voting rights of countries that commit violations of fundamental rights. While there is some debate of the technicalities of invoking Article 7 i.e. whether Hungary and Poland can veto attempts to invoke it against the other I think the truth of the matter is there are at least a significant minority of EU member states most probably in the East who might very well dislike Orban and might even say so publically are very uncomfortable with the idea of the EU institutions coming in and removing Orban from power from outside which is what an Article 7 invocation would in part due(Yes Orban would still be in power in Hungary and Hungary would still be an EU MS but his EU voting rights would be taken away).
Another more specific option again to this particular circumstance is to eliminate the rotating Presidency system which in reality doesn't have much power and serves little purpose but again you run into the issue is you are perceived to be taking away power from the smaller more peripheral states in the EU and giving that power to the centre. I will also note in the years leading up to the UK exiting the EU the UK, in particular, was not that concerned with what was going on in Poland or Hungary and the British position is that these were basically domestic internal affairs for Poland and Hungary and none of the EU's business. I bring this up in part because I know Jon Nighswander thinks it was a huge blunder on the part of the EU to let the UK vote to leave but the UK still in the EU would probably be one of the biggest allies of Hungary and Poland.