NYT : Poland and Hungary Use Coronavirus to Punish Opposition

[Celerity]

The European Union seems helpless, even complicit, as authoritarian-minded governments cite the pandemic to consolidate their power.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/world/europe/poland-hungary-coronavirus.html



BRUSSELS — Authoritarian-minded leaders around the world have used the coronavirus emergency to consolidate power. In Europe, the governments of Poland and Hungary have done that and more. They have managed to turn the crisis into a windfall and punish their political opponents, too. In a hasty effort to show that it was doing something to help during the virus crisis, the European Union repurposed 37 billion euros — about $40 billion — in structural aid funds, designed to help newer and poorer members, for virus aid. The result: Hungary and Poland each got considerably more money than virus-ravaged Italy or Spain.

Rather than punish two governments that have challenged the democratic values at the heart of the European project, the warped allocation of the money, with little oversight or requirement to respect the rule of law, looked more like a reward. It raised fresh questions about the European Union’s reluctance to criticize two governments that continue to flout the European standards of democracy and rule of law.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary is exercising emergency powers granted to him by the Parliament he dominates to deny opposition mayors sizable tax receipts in the name of new virus funding controlled by the central government. Poland’s government, led by the Law and Justice Party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is planning to go ahead with presidential elections on May 10, despite a virus lockdown that prevents opposition candidates from campaigning effectively. The government is pushing a bill to require all 30 million or so votes to be cast by postal ballot, which the postal union says is absurd and impossible.

At the same time, Poland’s government is pushing ahead with changes to the courts, creating a chamber of “extraordinary control” that will be charged with certifying the elections. Nor is it clear if Warsaw will bow to a ruling by the European Court of Justice, the highest in the European Union, ordering it to suspend a new “disciplinary chamber” of the Supreme Court. Last Friday, the European Parliament passed a resolution criticizing the activities of both governments during the coronavirus crisis as “totally incompatible with European values.”

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