00:00Let's get straight into a new report which says five members of the EU are constantly trying to undermine the
00:05bloc.
00:05While much is made of Hungary's objections and the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor OrbĂĄn's, it seems, close relationship with Russia
00:13and Vladimir Putin,
00:14as well as the Hungarian Foreign Minister reporting back to Moscow all developments in his Brussels meeting,
00:19Budapest isn't the only capital where the politicians are looking to the east.
00:23Let's bring in, for the insight and the analysis, Dave Keating, our Brussels correspondent.
00:28Dave, good evening to you. Who are these EU members who sympathize so much with Russia?
00:35Yeah, as you mentioned, it wasn't really a surprise to find Hungary on the list.
00:40But what was a surprise was to find a founding EU country, Italy, on this list of five countries that
00:48have been found to be violating the rule of law,
00:51specifically dismantling the rule of law in their countries.
00:55Those five countries are Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Croatia and Bulgaria.
01:02Now, this is a report from the Civil Liberties Union for Europe that comes out with these reports once a
01:09year.
01:10Those five countries were found to be, quote, dismantlers who are actively weakening the rule of law in their countries.
01:18The governments are actively weakening the rule of law.
01:21Then in a separate, less severe category, they found a couple of Western European countries, notably Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany
01:29and Sweden,
01:30are classified as sliders.
01:32So there are some areas in which the rule of law is of concern.
01:38Now, interestingly, the report also found that the European Union itself is letting the rule of law slide.
01:47Specifically, it found that the increasing use of emergency procedures to bypass the European Parliament,
01:55that those are becoming increasingly normalized.
01:58And they also cited this drive that's happening in Brussels right now, this crackdown against NGOs.
02:04That's being led by the governing party of the European Union, President Ursula von der Leyen's European People's Party,
02:13the center-right pan-European group.
02:16They have been going after NGOs.
02:18NGOs have been losing their funding.
02:20Civil society has been really attacked in Brussels.
02:24And the report signals that out.
02:26It also says that the EU's attempt to crack down on rule of law violations in member states is failing.
02:32It's not resulting in any improvements.
02:35And they note, interestingly, in this report, that the 95% of the violations that were listed in the European
02:43Commission's rule of law report last year
02:46were recycled from the previous year almost verbatim,
02:51which means both that there's no improvement being made once the Commission finds a violation of the rule of law,
02:57but also the Commission doesn't seem to be putting a huge amount of effort into these rule of law reports
03:03anymore.
03:04This doesn't sound good.
03:05If you're going to try and put a positive spin on it,
03:08you'd probably say that the EU, in exposing this, is actually looking at itself and exposing itself to scrutiny.
03:14However, I think that's quite a reach to go there.
03:16I think what this is exposing are things that perhaps we should be alarmed about.
03:22Yeah, well, I mean, in fact, the report's coming from this NGO itself rather than the European Commission,
03:28although the NGO does receive funding from the European Union itself.
03:33I mean, it's no surprise that this group, the Civil Liberties Union for Europe itself,
03:38an NGO, is trying to call attention to the attacks that have happened against NGOs in Brussels.
03:44This hasn't gotten a lot of media attention, but it's a big thing.
03:47I mean, NGOs in Brussels are really, really worried about losing their funding,
03:51about losing their access to the Commission, not being able to meet with lawmakers.
03:55They've complained that President von der Leyen refuses to meet with them
03:59while she's holding many, many meetings with European business associations.
04:04So this report does reinforce a lot of what we're hearing in Brussels these days about NGOs themselves,
04:12particularly NGOs that are active in the issues of the rule of law.
04:16We hear these complaints that President von der Leyen just doesn't seem to care about rule of law anymore.
04:22In fact, just two weeks ago, she gave a speech where she effectively declared rule of law to no longer
04:27be an EU concern,
04:29or at least international law, that the EU shouldn't be hung up about international anymore.
04:35She got a lot of criticism for that speech.
04:37She later tried to walk back those comments.
04:39But you can read between the lines here in this report the immense frustration at President von der Leyen at
04:46this moment,
04:47where she has really shut out NGOs and doesn't seem to be particularly concerned about the rule of law anymore.
04:53Indeed.
04:54And that very issue, because if we look, or if the EU looks at, say, what happens in Ukraine,
04:59or what happens in any other country, and then starts to quote and decide international law,
05:05it seems like a very, well, a very difficult position to maintain.
05:13Exactly.
05:13And this was the criticism that von der Leyen came under after she made that speech,
05:18where how can you argue that Ukraine needs to be protected because Russia violated international law by attacking it,
05:24when you say that international doesn't apply, when the US or Israel do the same thing,
05:29or when the EU, when this talk comes to the EU's behavior.
05:33So obviously there's been a lot of charges of hypocrisy lined up at EU governments and the EU's president
05:40over the past two months, three months, really,
05:43particularly when they looked the other way with the invasion of Venezuela.
05:46So all of this goes to a kind of larger issue, I think,
05:49both for international law and the rule of law within EU member states,
05:54that the EU's government just doesn't really seem to care about these things anymore,
05:59and that is worrying a lot of people.
06:01Indeed.
06:01Indeed. Just parking that for a second, and I started off with Viktor Orban in Hungary.
06:05There is an election coming in Hungary very, very shortly.
06:09Are we expecting any change there that might alter the situation of rule of law,
06:13where you're talking about, but also the fact that Hungary is blocking that 90 billion euro loan for Ukraine.
06:19Are we expecting any change that might ease the situation?
06:22Yeah.
06:24There's been a lot of speculation about what happens on April 13th.
06:28The election is on April 12th.
06:29If Orban loses and is replaced by a new government, still a center-right government,
06:35not a particularly pro-EU government, but compared to Orban's government, hugely, hugely different.
06:41It's expected that that new government under Peter Magyar would unblock that 90 billion freeze almost right away.
06:48However, I think there's a lot of skeptics saying, okay, it's not going to be this hugely pro-EU government
06:55that comes in.
06:56He's still dealing with a population that is pretty anti-EU, so Peter Magyar has to be careful.
07:01On the other side, there's all this talk about what happens if Orban wins.
07:05The polling right now is not in his favor.
07:07It shows him many, many points behind.
07:09But he has the support of both Moscow and Washington, who are funneling money and logistical help his way.
07:16So who knows what can happen on April 12th?
07:19And if he's still there, does the EU change its attitude toward Hungary?
07:23Could it finally move forward with this Article 7 procedure to take away Hungary's voting rights,
07:29to take away Hungary's EU funds?
07:30President von der Leyen has had a pretty light touch against Hungary so far.
07:35That's partly because the other EU governments have not wanted to pull those emergency levers against Hungary.
07:42But if Orban clings on somehow after April 12th, perhaps because of the support from America and Russia,
07:49they could be looking at very, very different relations between Brussels and Budapest going forward.
07:55Indeed.
07:56Just building on that Washington-Moscow angle there, clearly there must be some people, namely Vladimir Putin,
08:04perhaps Donald Trump, who might be wringing their hands in glee looking at what is happening right now in the
08:09EU.
08:12For sure, I think that anyone in government in Washington or Moscow right now wouldn't be terribly concerned by this
08:19report,
08:20given that those are two countries where the rule of law is itself also being eroded and has been significantly
08:25eroded over the past two decades in the case of Russia.
08:28And these countries that are named in this report are tight U.S. allies, these governments.
08:35They are Georgia Maloney in Italy, prides herself on her close relationship with Donald Trump.
08:41And so that is a common thread we see here between these five countries.
08:44They are all very close with Washington.
08:47Dave Keating, thank you as always for the insight that you bring to these stories.
08:51Dave Keating, our Brussels correspondent there with the analysis.
08:55Thanks, Dave.
08:55All the very best to you.
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