Who has the right to choose what countries to exclude from the EU?

Some nations often think that when they are small they can’t change anything in Europe. This feeling is typical for Czechs because there’s “only” ten million of them. To the contrary, let’s say Luxembourg, for example, doesn’t even have as many citizens as Czech capital city Prague and in spite of that it is dominating Europe in a way that gives us chills.

Luxembourgers are a pretty interesting nation. Germans with Celtic roots. They seem to be competent politicians for years now. For example, Luxembourger Jean-Clause Juncker is the head of the European Commission and seems to be invincible. Even though many European politicians asked him to resign after the BREXIT vote he keeps holding the power like wet sand holds your behind. His last drama is alcoholism. (In the interview for French paper Libération he had to disprove the speculations about him being addicted to alcohol. He claimed, that it often seems to people that he is drunk but it is not true. In “reality” he supposedly has serious problems with balance. Well, at least that. These are clearly very common problems of top politicians…)

A long-time colleague of Juncker from the Luxembourg government is since 2004 the minister of foreign affairs Jean Asselborn. Does he know little something about spirit as well? I wouldn’t even be surprised if it was under the influence when he claimed that “Hungary should be excluded from the EU”. It is supposedly the only possibility how to “protect the cohesion and values of the European Union”. Budapest is according to Asselborn treating war refugees almost worse than animals, breaches press freedom and the independence of the justice system. “Hungary is not far from an order to shoot refugees” Asselborn declared.

Oh, I see. So the Hungary is not keeping the fundamental values of EU, even though it is trying to keep the Dublin Regulation, detain illegal immigrants and protect the outer borders of Schengen by any possible means. And because the EU is in no way helping, they had to build a wall on this outer border on their own so they can protect it. Hungary is guarding the entire Schengen just like it used to be the frontier guarding the Europe against the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. Apparently, that is “massive violation of the EU's fundamental values”.

But the Turkey, where a coup d'état was attempted, where the radical Islamization is more and more prevalent, where the private property of people who are inconvenient to governing regime is being nationalized, where thousands of people are put behind bars, where they are discussing the return of death penalty, is obviously representing the fundamental values of the EU, because they are still holding the accession negotiations! Congratulations to Luxembourg.

How the Luxembourger even figured out that the Hungary is building their walls against war refugees? Isn’t it rather a manipulative statement?  The real war refugee has a right to ask for asylum wherever in the entire Europe. You can most often identify them from the fact that they actually do it and are happy that they avoided the death in the war zone. On the contrary, you easily recognize this weasel because instead of asking for asylum and looking for safety in the first country where it’s not shooting, they forcibly climb over the fence or ignore the laws of the country where they arrived. And when they get the asylum -just like the German authorities found out- they go on holiday to said war-zone and life threatening country from which they run. Isn’t there something wrong? Could it be that our war refugee is not running from the war but running through Hungary to let’s say Germany for their social benefits?

And how can Luxembourger and wannabe diplomat dare to say something about Hungary, that it is not” far from an order to shoot refugees”? Does he have any evidence? Or is it just a gossip? Manipulation of public opinion? Isn’t it on the same level of human (in)decency like for example claim such nonsense like that every Luxembourger is an alcoholic and we don’t want drunks in EU, so we should get rid of them…?

Let’s see what is really interesting about it: When the Britain democratically voted to leave EU, the Brussels could jump in their skin. The rage was flowing out of them. Not only, were many politicians afraid that they will lose their power over the suddenly smaller areas but they felt also almost personally attacked. But when we are talking about the poorer Hunger, all of a sudden its good target for hitting and threatening with exclusion. It’s no wonder that many people in Hungary are reminiscing how they used to feel once upon a time when Nazis talked about Untermensch. It is almost like something is associating this attitude.

Let’s not pretend that other countries in central Europe are being seen differently. For the top representatives of EU, they are just “eastern Europe”. All together in one bag. They are “V4“. And they have together 130x more citizens then Luxembourg. V4 is bothering Luxembourgish minister like a thorn in the side. In May he claimed for a German daily paper Aachener Nachrichten that "he has fits of rage to hear some Visegrad countries' statements". (If I was somewhat more mentally unstable person that would happen to me from hearing Brussels’ statements all the time.)

We can’t wonder that the Europe is facing a migration crisis when people like Asselborn are responsible for the migration politics but similar statements are not coming only from the Luxembourg. The stubbornness of V4 bothers elsewhere too (just like they are bothered by the stubbornness and self-confidence of Britain). It is normal for some western European countries to try to bend, coax, scare or bribe the Central Europe. It is not that long ago when in Germany they wrote that the funds of EU should be taken away from the Central Europeans as a form of pressure so they would accept immigrants. (Well, the question stands: “Economic immigrants or funds?” it is fairly simple deciding. Keep both. Yes, even those funds. That I am saying as a citizen of the Czech Republic)

The referendum about the migration issues is in Hungary slowly approaching. Its outcome will make the government step harshly against the Brussels. The situation will only get more tensed. The East might stop caring about the Brussels and the Brussels about the East. Theoretically the Brussels shouldn’t care, after all, they are only getting rid of the problematic East. In the case of London, they did care… This was not only a matter of money but also a matter of pride. And pride is in the case of Brussels (and Luxembourg) sky reaching.

 

Marketa Sichtarova

Author is Czech economist & writer