Jokes About Hungarian ‘Dictator’ Masked Breach at Heart of EU
Viktoria Dendrinou, Bloomberg, 10.12.2020
Quotes
When Jean-Claude Juncker spotted Hungary's Viktor Orban at the start of a European Union summit in 2015, he greeted him with a friendly handshake and a cheeky slap on the face.
"The dictator is coming," the EU veteran from Luxembourg joked to colleagues milling around on camera before their talks began in earnest. No one's laughing now. [...]
Even if the new mechanism tying funds to the rule of law is watered down or hard to use in practice, its mere existence could help, said Janis Emmanouilidis, a director of studies at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, because it may deter governments from the most blatant abuses and offer support to domestic parties that are more in line with the EU's core values.
"Having this conditionality mechanism in place, it is opening the door in a certain direction," he said. [...]
Read full article here
Latest media contributions
EPC Update – Can the EU27 exit crisis mode in 2023?
Online Briefing, YouTube, 27.01.2023
Ukraine conflict is “Europe’s war”
Quotes, Brussels Morning, 22.12.2022
Een reus die strandt op de veto's van dwergen
Quotes, fd (NL), 21.12.2022
EPC Update – War in Ukraine, economic slowdown, and energy crisis: Permacrisis or lack of ambition?
Online Briefing, YouTube, 21.11.2022
EPC Update/Post-summit Briefing
Online Briefing, YouTube, 21.10.2022
EPC Update/Post-summit Briefing – How to deal with the upcoming winter of discontent?
Online Briefing, YouTube, 10.10.2022
XXL-Europagipfel im Zeichen der XXL-Krisen
Quotes, Tagesschau.de, 06.10.2022
EPC Update – State of the Union 2022: Charting the way forward at a watershed moment
Online Briefing, YouTube, 14.09.2022
W październiku ma powstać europejska wspólnota polityczna. Czym będzie?
Quotes, Gazeta Wyborcza, 09.08.2022
EPC Update – The EU’s political landscape at this watershed moment
Online Briefing, YouTube, 18.07.2022