EU: What helps against Europe’s populists – opinion

Europe is waging a war against itself, at least a war of words, and that’s bad enough. The Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki speaks of the fact that his country will fight back if the EU ignites a “third world war” against the Poles in the dispute over the independence of the judiciary. The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warns his compatriots that the Brussels EU elites wanted to reeducate them into people with Western European values ​​by beating them and urged them: “When the time comes, stand in front of your houses and defend them.” Before you get excited about the nationalists and populists in Eastern Europe, you should think about someone else, about Michel Barnier.

As the chief Brexit negotiator, the Frenchman, as the chief negotiator for Brexit, defended the Union’s values ​​and interests very hard. In the French presidential election campaign, he now scores with the idea of ​​overriding European law on immigration issues in order to defend national identity.

This means that the conservative politician is not far from the Brexit populists, Orbán or Morawiecki. The “Brussels bubble”, says Barnier, will provoke many more EU exits due to its inaudibility. Barnier once enjoyed a career in this bubble. With his hypocrisy he is doing serious damage to the EU.

A defenseless giant

The enemy image of Brussels is popular with populists of all origins. “Brussels” means the institutions that are needed to organize an association of 27 states. Parliament, Commission, Council of Member States, European Court of Justice in Luxembourg: They are common creatures of the Member States, but when they do their job they are often discredited as unworldly elites who are only concerned with expanding their power by standardizing the whole of Europe and unify.

“Brussels” is a defenseless giant if the member states do not defend it. Angela Merkel also weakened the institutions by campaigning for indulgence for Poland and Hungary for far too long while the rule of law was being dismantled and corruption was rampant. Now the EU is all the more threatened with incapacity to act.

Poland is now supposed to pay one million euros a day because the government is undermining the separation of powers in the country. It will not be the last punishment, not only for Poles but also for Hungarians. The Commission has no choice but to be tough in defending common norms and values.

In the treaties there is talk of an ever further integration of Europe

The war rhetoric of Morawiecki and Orbán suggests, however, that they will not pay. They probably don’t want to leave the EU either, because they benefit far too much from it. They think they can get away with a deal in the end. To justify it, they insist on bringing the EU back to its core, a “Europe of fatherlands” without Brussels.

The European treaties still contain the goal of an “ever closer union”, an ever closer integration of Europe. What exactly that means for the Europe of 27 is why it has become quiet. Common Debt? Common border walls? Common Arms? More rights for the common institutions? If you want to stand up to the populists, you have to fill this debate with life.

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