Nobody leaves the EU if they don’t want to. Poland, or Hungary, have not said they want to leave, as the United Kingdom did and now pays the consequences. But, even if they do not line up the exit door, one must know that the EU cannot continue to violate its principles: it is not only an economic club with a single market, but also an alliance in which democratic values are shared that they define the rule of law. If the Polish Constitutional Court declares itself above the European courts, as it has just defiantly positioned itself, or when numerous municipalities in both countries boast of being a “gay-free municipality”, it makes little sense for them to remain in the Union. President Ursula von der Leyen and the German and French governments are strongly warning this.
Warsaw and Budapest have stood out in recent years as countries with a difficult fit in the democratic criteria, the same as in the rest of European countries with the extreme right parties that, fortunately, do not govern. We knew of his Eurosceptic tendency, but the Polish challenge places him in a scenario of unavoidable economic sanctions. The European Parliament is already asking to suspend Poland’s recovery funds, not yet authorized because its technical plan has not been approved. And other funds, like the Feder, can be frozen. “It is a very difficult prospect for Poland, because its determination to violate basic rules of the rule of law can bring it a very high economic cost,” estimates Spanish MEP Domènec Ruiz Devesa, very close to European Vice President Josep Borrell. Ruiz Devesa does not believe that there will be a Polexit, as some analysts speculate. The Brexit It has already shown that divorce is very expensive also socially, and can now be seen with the shortage and anger of the population. Politically there are risks because the Polish citizenship is pro-European and the loss of funds from Brussels will irritate for sure.
Europe is very difficult to govern because the economic and cultural distances of the 27 member countries of the Union are very remarkable. To further complicate matters, decision-making within the European Council must be done unanimously. This means exhausting negotiations because a small member country like Malta, with only half a million inhabitants, can paralyze far-reaching agreements given that its vote is worth the same as Germany’s, with 83 million.
In a scenario of growing international tensions in which the action of the EU is needed as a balancing power, its difficulty in making decisions with a cumbersome voting system reduces its capacity to intervene at the required speed. If this mechanism, which must be reformed to move to a system of compensated majorities by withdrawing unanimity, is compounded by internal conflicts such as the one that has arisen with Poland, the prospect is aggravated.
Fortunately, the weekend brought us the good news of the agreement of 136 countries within the OECD to establish a minimum tax of 15% on companies from 2023. Ten years of negotiations have cost. The agreement, which involves reallocating 125,000 million dollars a year, has been signed by Ireland, Estonia and Hungary, three countries of the Union located on the border of tax havens. One less internal friction.
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