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woah

At what point does the EU start to look pretty illiberal for tolerating this?

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What power does the EU have to bring justice to this? (Asking as an American)

They can only withhold the funds, which they're already doing. We'll see how that plays out over the next few months.

The EU usually handles EU law violations by member states with economic sanctions.

There are many legal recourses because their are rules about being part of the EU.

They can also threaten to drop susidizies and to kick them out.

I'm actually hugely wary of EU interfering in state affairs, because the EU is not some 'magical good guy' - they're just usually 'somewhat gooder'.

In particular, Poland refuted the ECJ as having ultimate authority over local courts, the EU threw a huge fuss - but Poland has substantial backing for that: there is nothing in the treaties which indicate ECJ has said authority. At the very same time, the issue is not resolved even in Germany, and the German high courts are thinking of pressing a case. Since Germany is the 'centre of the EU' - and - there are gaping holes in the true legal authority of the ECJ for certain things, it's not a war that the EU wants to get into. It could tear a mile wide hole in the legal fabric of the EU. That said: I wish the would do it because the situation is unconscionable and almost nobody is aware of it.

Using Pegasus to spy on political opponents however, is a bridge way, way too far. Poland is not going to have a leg to stand on either moral, populist, legal, treaty etc. - there's just no argument they can make.

I think the EU should put a lot of heft behind this issue though.

Finally, bit of a caveat, it could be that other EU states are using the same or similar tech to do 'similar kinds of things' - those EU states are not going to want to be embarrassed by public knowledge or airing of that. So that could be a problem.

> I'm actually hugely wary of EU interfering in state affairs, because the EU is not some 'magical good guy' - they're just usually 'somewhat gooder'.

I trust the French/German political tradition a lot more than I trust Poland's

I trust UK more (they didn't wave white flags like crazy nor they didn't start two world wars). It is a pity they are out now.

As a Brit and in the interest of accuracy, Britain declared war on Germany both in 1914 [0] and 1939 [1] after an ultimatum to Germany expired. So technically 'we' did "start" the WORLD WARs (if we hadn't declared war it is debatable war would have spread to the rest of the world (at least immediately)).

[0] 23:00 August 4th 1914, in response to the invasion of Belgium by Germany.

[1] 11:00 September 3rd 1939, in response to the invasion of Poland by Germany.

Why draw the line of causation there? That seems a bit ridiculous. France had issued the same ultimatum, and declared war just a few hours later.

Both France and Britian were obligated by treaty to defend Poland. Germany started the conflict, and knew full well that they would force other countries to get involved. To claim otherwise is counter-factual.

If you punch a police officer in his face, and his partner knocks you out, you can't claim the partner started the fight.

There is Article 7, which can result in the suspension of the voting rights of the member state, but it's pretty slow. They have also been working on new mechanisms exactly because of rule of law violations by some member states (including Poland and Hungary). Poland is actually being sanctioned, AFAIK, for 1M EUR/day as of now for some violation. I think it's related to their restrictive abortion laws (and they are ignoring the ruling of the European Court, or something like that).

This is besides withholding the funds, which have been mentioned by others and which is happening to Hungary as of now. They are withholding 7.2 billion EURs of the reconstruction fund due to claims of high corruption and an inadequate legal structure and thus control over how it's being spent. (I.e. they can't see the guarantees that a sizeable chunk of it won't be stolen and/or spent on things other than what it's intended for.) And it is, indeed a direct consequence (one of the direct consequences) of the lack of adequate rule of law. No wonder: the very reason these guys dismantle democracy is to seize more power, keep the power and to steal us much as they can. (Which is, besides the obvious personal motivations, is a requisite for operating their power structure.)

EDIT: typos.

>Poland is actually being sanctioned, AFAIK, for 1M EUR/day as of now for some violation.

That's 0.5M/day related to dispute with Czechs over environmental impact of Turów mine. It seems PiS strategy for negotiating with Czechs is just completely ignoring them, which lead ECJ to impose fines.

Then there are multiple parallel sanctions. There is a 1M/day one as well and it's related to the rule of law. I was wrong, it's not about the abortion act but about the independence of courts [1] [2]. (As far as I can understand they created a system where judges can be disciplined and that is deemed to allow political control over them and their decisions.)

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-top-court-orders-pol... [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-top-court-orders-pol...

What power does the EU have to collect fines if Poland refuses to pay? Genuine question.

EU gives Poland loads of money every year. Just stop the money faucet.

Not abortion laws, we’re being fined for the unlawful constitutionally judiciary reforms which were done in 2015 when they took power. PiS (Law and Justice) leader has been obsessed with this idea for decades. By basically jamming the constitutional tribunal Jaroslaw Kaczyński has grabbed the entire judiciary system by the balls, which in many complex ways cements PiS power into place. My understanding has been that also the EU has considered withdrawing EU funding to apply pressure, but they can’t really because they’re worried that PiS would then hypnotize Poles into asking for PolExit. You couldn’t make this shit up. The abortion is a whole other subject here you don’t even wanna know ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯

I would consider it as such already. Federations are ultimately responsible for the failures and flaws of their constituent states if they have the power to prevent them. Nobody considers the US federal government entirely free of blame when a US state passes an illiberal or undemocratic law (e.g. Jim Crow laws), and neither should EU be absolved of responsibility in properly enforcing EU laws in places like Poland and Hungary.

The EU is not a federal state.

It IS a federation, and regardless of what you call it, the fact is that the EU has the ability to control and limit its rogue members to protect human rights, and chooses not to exercise this power in many cases. The EU is to blame for this and can be considered illiberal in this regard because it does not adequately prevent its constituent states from passing laws that infringe on citizens' fundamental rights.

It is exercising that power to the extent it can. Taking them to court and applying economic penalties would be how actual federated states deal with rogue provinces, at least, at first. The EU doesn't have a federal police force, or even a military with a mandate to reimpose the rule of (European) law in Poland. So it's silly to suggest it has the powers of a federal state, and hence the culpability of one, so should somehow be considered illiberal.

Or, when does the EU start looking powerless to stop it.

At the point, where the EU is more dependent on Poland being in the EU, than Poland is on being in the EU. That seems a little far fetched at the moment.

Then again, that didn't stop the UK.

Illiberal = tolerant?

Illiberal, as in not supporting human liberties, by tolerating the authoritarian Polish government. It confused me too.

I'm still confused where they're asking for a pan-Europe government to step in and force a country to cede some of its sovereignty to it (the EU) and calling that liberal.

That strikes me as slightly different than, say, a coalition breaking up a human rights-violating empire and RETURNING democratic sovereignty to its people.

The USA stepped in to stop slavery and then later apartheid in the southern states. If they hadn't, I think we would think less of them.

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