EU chiefs assure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy they have the tools to unblock the funds.
The EU will deliver on its promise to give Ukraine a much-needed €90 billion loan, despite Hungary attempting to derail the effort at the last minute, top officials said on Tuesday.
Speaking in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council chief António Costa both insisted that the loan would go ahead soon.
“We will deliver on our word one way or the other,” von der Leyen told reporters. “Let me be clear. We have different options and we will use them.”
Kick Hungary out of the EU?
Italy and Slovakia will defend Orban, unfortunately. Hungary/The Kremlin aren’t working in isolation within the EU.
That’s the right call, and if there isn’t a way to vote them out then make one.
It is not the right call. That cedes ground to Russian influence.
The right course of action is to fight back the russian covert ops, expose orban as grossly incompetent and corrupt, and get him replaced with someone who’s actually good for Hungary.
I want to believe there are a lot of people in Hungary who oppose Orban. Maybe the majority at this stage. Kicking them out would be devastating for their hope of better days.
The EU needs better mechanisms to contain bad faith members. It can already restrict funds. They need a mechanism to pass over one member’s veto.
Oh for sure I would hate to have the people suffering because of their idiot leader. And yes ideally there should be a mechanism to counter one person from fucking everything up.
Sadly there is no mechanism for this
Lock the Kremlin stooge in the bathroom and vote a mechanism into place. Only let them out when it’s done so they can pack their shit and leave.
Article 50 would be the way if i recall correctly?
That would be if Hungary chooses to leave. There isn’t a way for other members to kick out a member against their will
It wouldn’t be much of a protection pact if the more powerful countries could just remove the smaller ones at will
I mean… you can’t kick them out… but you can make remaining in the union while maintaining such obstinacy so onerous and unbearable that they themselves invoke A50. This would of course be a tactic to use if Orban somehow manages to maintain his grasp on power in the upcoming election. But it should be noted as an option.
Well then you need an article that reads something along the lines of:
“Should a member state of the EU repeatedly and consistently act in the interests of states that are outside of the EU, or against the common interest of the defense of the EU, the remaining member states may invoke Article [whatever number is next}, and may hold a vote to expel the hostile member state. The vote needs a 90+ to 95+ % of the representatives to vote in the affirmative, but at that time EU membership and all security clearances are immediately revoked.”
It’s also a toothless defense pact if one hostile actor can undermine the defense of every other country in, and surrounding, the EU.
But the other countries could leave and reform under a new treaty could they not?
Look, by the time you’re resorting to asking about dissolving and reconstituting the EU as a mechanism, I’m going to boldly suggest that you aren’t going to find anything the army of career civil servants navigating this crisis first-hand haven’t already considered.
Edit: Just saying, though, that we could go with The Onion’s idea.
Wouldn’t it be possible under article 7, I imagine that the rest of the EU is just waiting to see if orban gets ousted in the next election and if he stays then pursue this avenue.
Kick the trojan horse.
Remove hungary
Then they’re being anti-strategic morons:
Orban is Putin’s ally, NOT EU’s.
Appeasement won’t allow the EU to be viable, once Trump has ripped civilrights from the Americas, & the EU has NOBODY helping it, against China-backed Putin.
No matter: the souls who WON’T learn, this world, … whenever they accept that their opportunity’s finally gone ( like millenia in the future, after not having human-category-lives to inhabit because we wouldn’t do what we had to do, to survive )…
they’ll find some other world, & …
… do exactly the same won’t-grow-up there, too.
Only a tiny-percentage of souls grow-up, on each world, it looks like, & that means that no significant fraction of humankind will grow-up in time, here.
So, a species-wide DarwinAward will be our epitaph, later this century.
At-least inertia/won’t-grow-up gets to be honored as being our most-important “god”…
That must mean something…
/s
< bitterness >
“We will deliver on our word one way or the other,” von der Leyen told reporters. “Let me be clear. We have different options and we will use them.”
I don’t think appeasement is the strategy, why would you think that?
