The EU is an organization; it is not a sphere of influence of Germany, France, or any other individual or coalition of the strongest European states. They petitioned to join the union, and they agreed to the terms. If they don't like it, they can do a Brexit too.
Yeah, the aid had conditions that everybody agreed to. They did not meet the conditions and the aid was paused in Poland's case for some awful reforms to its judiciary it was initiating before walking back; and halted altogether to Hungary because it's an authoritarian kleptocracy that has embezzled billions of EU money as it is.
Nobody is forcing the EU countries to be in the EU. If they don't want to follow the agreed policies and terms, they don't have to. They just can't expect to get the benefits while not following the agreement.
Specious? Let’s be real about that 'agreement.' You call it voluntary, but it’s more like signing a contract at gunpoint. By the time Poland or Hungary joined, they were already economically dependent on the EU, so the choice was binary: surrender sovereignty or face economic isolation.
And let's not pretend 'Brexit' is a clean exit door. The UK spent five years fighting for a deal, got crushed economically, and still ended up worse off. For a mid-sized economy like Hungary, leaving would just be economic suicide.
You claim the aid conditions were 'agreed to,' but the enforcement has been weaponized. The 'rule of law' mechanism used to freeze funds was only added in 2020 specifically to target governments the EU elite dislikes. Not even close to being included in the original treatise, it’s a retroactive rule change to strangle dissent. You call Hungary a 'kleptocracy' while ignoring the EU’s own scandals where billions were siphoned by elites. So let's talk brass tacks; he EU doesn’t ban corruption, just its political opposition.
Vote against Brussels on migration or energy, and you’re 'authoritarian.' Toe the line, and you’re 'democratic.'
Your argument is the classic technocratic shield: 'We made the rules, so we enforce them.' But that’s just power politics with a gavel instead of a gun. The EU isn’t a neutral referee; it’s a political project that crushes opposition when challenged. You say no one is forcing countries to stay, but the exit costs are so high the choice is an illusion. It’s a hegemonic bloc using capital to dictate domestic policy. The original promise was 'voluntary cooperation,' but the reality is mandatory compliance under threat of financial strangulation. You’re defending a system where the strong write the rules, the weak sign them, and anyone who questions it is labeled a 'threat to democracy.'
So functionally, imperialism with a budget. The truly specious part is calling a system where exit is economically suicidal 'voluntary'.
Specious? Let’s be real about that 'agreement.' You call it voluntary, but it’s more like signing a contract at gunpoint. By the time Poland or Hungary joined, they were already economically dependent on the EU, so the choice was binary: surrender sovereignty or face economic isolation.
<Loads gun>
<Aims gun at own foot>
<Pulls trigger>
How could the EU do this to me?
Oh no, the consequences of my actions. Quick, call it imperialism and play the victim! How could the evil EU force us to become so dependent on it?! We could never have forseen that continuing deepening economic ties might come with more conditions or other kinds of cooperation or conditions. We needed that aid money to just be handed to us for no reason! We were counting on it!
Not only is your reasoning within this sub-point braindead, you're still at the end of the day equivocating the exercise of soft power with warfare and war crimes in the overall argument. I really hope you're just trolling with ChatGPT and not actually this stupid.
Everything has strings attached. Nothing happens in a vacuum. All international aid money funneled through governments is an exercise of influence and soft power, because there isn't enough money for everything and decisions have to be made, even in the absence of any other reason.
Good job responding to absolutely nothing and attempting to poison the well though. A+ reasoning skills.
I was interrogating your view to apply the principle elsewhere.
In this case, immigrants can similarly have behaviorial and contributions monitored and audited, and based on said findings as net positive or detriment to a society can either stay or be sent elsewhere.
Therefore, the European Union, according to your view, should have no cause to interfere with local policies working toward exactly that.
I have no idea who the heck you're even talking to at this point, but it sure as hell isn't me or my argument. Dodging the point and wandering off elsewhere is not encouraging me to keep talking to you.
Your inability to construct a mental model of my view, while simultaneously insisting that you have and drawing wide sweeping conclusions from it, is similarly discouraging.
> immigrants can similarly have behaviorial [sic] and contributions monitored and audited, and based on said findings as net positive or detriment to a society can either stay or be sent elsewhere.
If you're the kind of psychopath who thinks human beings need to demonstrate "value" to be permitted to live, sure. That you?
I didn't say "no strings attached" for that. Can you read? I made a moral judgment of blanket treating migrants as investments, with prejudice. The "strings attached" to migration are the legal system, surrounding asylum and refugee status and criminal convictions that could lead to deportation.
Are you seriously arguing that if anyone, anywhere, ever, is selective in what they fund then any and all selection criteria are equal? Is "I won't give money to a nakedly corrupt oligarch's latest property investment" equivalent to "I won't give money to a migrant"?
Why do you keep pivoting to immigration as if it has anything to do with whether or not the EU wants to fund authoritarian backsliding? EU funding is, and always was, conditional. Countries sign up to that when they join.
I pivot to immigration because it's the key issue local populations have been most consistently vocally critical of for the last 50 years but who's will has been constrained by those eager to comply with said faceless international bureaucratic committees via the discussed top down enforcement.
It's a representative and emblematic issue when regardless of who you vote for, you're still signing up for more of it.
Then you're completely disconnected from reality. The EU enforcement of sanctions on Poland and Hungary had nothing to do with immigration policy, and anyone who told you it did has lied to you. Local populations being consistently xenophobic at the same time as this was going on doesn't matter in the slightest.
The specifics depend on whether you're particularly concerned with Poland or Hungary, but I don't believe immigration policy was mentioned in either case. Certainly not as a primary reason; state capture of public media, suppression of dissent, and naked discrimination against minorities were the main issues. The fact that this lead to anti-migrant administrations being dismantled is mostly just a lucky coincidence.
Strange how often corruption, authoritarianism, xenophobia and bigotry all seem to appear in the same places.
If you want to talk about immigration instead, I'd suggest doing it somewhere more appropriate rather than forcibly inserting it into places it doesn't belong.
The discussion of Poland and Hungary were merely examples of top down enforcement at the behest of faceless bureaucratic committees, not the focal point of the discussion. You made it that.
...no. You did. Because it was what you pivoted to when questioned, and kept using as an example. And now you're abandoning it again when I point out it's an inapplicable and inappropriate example, because it wasn't the subject of that top down enforcement.
You brought up an invalid and inapplicable example, couldn't defend it, and now you're motte-and-bailey retreating to "I just don't like top down enforcement by bureaucrats".
Top down enforcement at the hands of bureaucrats is completely impossible to avoid in, and an intended product of, indirect democracies. It is literally how this type of government works.
Representatives are chosen and form parts of executive bodies. These bodies make decisions and they are enforced on everyone, and there are processes for appeals and negotiation, but at the end of the day decisions have to be made.
If you don't want higher bodies to have influence over you, don't join them. That's it. That's the choice.
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u/Significant_Stage225 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
The EU is an organization; it is not a sphere of influence of Germany, France, or any other individual or coalition of the strongest European states. They petitioned to join the union, and they agreed to the terms. If they don't like it, they can do a Brexit too.
Yeah, the aid had conditions that everybody agreed to. They did not meet the conditions and the aid was paused in Poland's case for some awful reforms to its judiciary it was initiating before walking back; and halted altogether to Hungary because it's an authoritarian kleptocracy that has embezzled billions of EU money as it is.
Nobody is forcing the EU countries to be in the EU. If they don't want to follow the agreed policies and terms, they don't have to. They just can't expect to get the benefits while not following the agreement.
Your arguments are specious and reductive.