Fascism in Central Europe (Poland/ Hungary/Slovakia/ Czech/)

[Nefertiti2]

Maybe needs its own thread

60000 white nationalists march in Poland

A journalist who criticised the marches threatened with prosecution.

The technique in Poland and Hungary anyway seems to be that a hard right governing party uses an openly fascist party to its right as warning and threat & to say the things it doesn't dare say openly.

[Diable Rouge]

Added to the additional problem of the socialist parties still being associated with their former communist roots (Czechia aside). One point to note once Britain leaves the EU will be the concentration of the national sovereignty perspective in the Visegrad Group, with analysts expecting Austria to become closely aligned, if not a formal member, shortly.

[Lang Spoon]

Not just the taint of the former communist parties, but what’s regarded as basic social democratic decency in the old 15 (like what remains of Welfare and Health supports) has the stink of Communist control in much of New Europe. Partly the fault of the post communist parties putting on a Blairy face while being grasping kleptocrats and/or useless when in power in the 90s.

[MsD]

Eeek, my cleaner has posted a picture. What do I do?

[Lang Spoon]

¿!!?

[Lang Spoon]

Ah, now I get you.

[ursus arctos]

MsD, what is your relationship like? What context was the photo posted in?

Unless you are used to speaking about broader questions of life, I'm not sure doing so is required here.

[ursus arctos]

[URL]https://twitter.com/lrb/status/1124946587711500288?s=21[/URL]

[ad hoc]

Ok, I will use this thread. Some good news from Poland (well, looking to the future good news, tied up in some appalling news from the past/present) comes because of the very strong links between PiS and the Catholic Church - and the fact that the abuse scandals connected to the latter have really started to hit Poland hard now, which in turn is hitting the PiS vote. A summary here from Eva Balogh from the Hungarian Spectrum http://hungarianspectrum.org/2019/05...sue-in-poland/site

[ursus arctos]

That is the most hopeful piece I've read in some time.

[Ginger Yellow]

ECJ rules against Poland on Supreme Court retirement age.

The Court rejects Poland’s argument that the decision to lower to 65 the retirement age of the judges of the Supreme Court was taken with the goal of standardising that age with the general retirement age applicable to all workers in Poland and, in doing so, improving the age balance among senior members of that court. The explanatory memorandum to the draft Law on the Supreme Court, the implementation of a new mechanism allowing the President of the Republic to decide, on a discretionary basis, to extend the thus-shortened period during which a judge carries out his or her duties and the fact that the measure in question affected almost a third of the serving members of that court, including its First President, whose 6-year mandate guaranteed under the Constitution was shortened, are such as to raise serious doubts as to the real aims of that reform. In addition, that measure appears neither to be appropriate for the purposes of achieving the aims put forward by Poland nor to be proportionate. Consequently, the Court holds that the application of the measure lowering the retirement age of the judges of the Supreme Court to the judges in post within that court is not justified by a legitimate objective and undermines the principle of the irremovability of judges, that principle being essential to their independence.

[ursus arctos]

Bravo

[jameswba]

I found out just today that a former student of mine (c2000-2003), now an investigative journalist, has co-authored a book about the Babis government in the Czech Rep and its conflicts of interest and links with big business. It's called Zluty Baron (the Yellow Baron - though Zluty has other connotations), and its subtitle is taken from Babis' quote about running the state like a business ('firm' directly translated). I've ordered it, in the expectation that it will arouse some righteous fury.

There's a video here where she (the co-author) talks about the book, and journalism in the Czech (and Slovak) Rep since 1989 and in the wake of the Kuciak/Kusnirova murder last year. I fear it only has Czech and German subtitles though :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpG1hbmWQ0Q

250,000 Czechs demonstrated against Babis and his government at the weekend.

[ursus arctos]

[https://twitter.com/ap_europe/status/1446141612900425734?s=21

[Etienne]

It's a tricky path for Law and Justice to navigate. They don't want to leave the EU, even if their power is not quite as dependent as Orban on determining where EU money gets doled out. But they don't want to have to deal with the minimum democratic requirements that the EU might impose either.

[ursus arctos]

Very true, but like their model Orban, they have yet to suffer any real consequences of their actions

And Obsn and PiS together block anything requiring unanimity

[Etienne]

I've added. "as Orban" so my last post makes sense.

[ad hoc]

I'm hoping things might be different post-Merkel. There's fairly damning evidence that Merkel has had a lot of influence in ensuring that Hungary/Orban doesn't suffer the consequences of its actions within the EU

[ad hoc]

Meanwhile this Poland move seems like a huge miscalculation by PiS (they certainly don't seem to have Orban's political nous). Opinion polls show a huge majority of Poles are in favour of the EU, and this seems like it's essentially positioning PiS as the anti EU party.

[ursus arctos]

There has always been an anti-EU clique within PiS, in part because the relatively small portion of the population that doesn't support the EU generally supports PiS. That faction is overly represented in the Justice Ministry and the courts.

There is also a theory that public support for the EU will weaken as Poland's net benefits from membership weaken as it grows richer.

[Discordant Resonance]

I found out just today that a former student of mine (c2000-2003), now an investigative journalist, has co-authored a book about the Babis government in the Czech Rep and its conflicts of interest and links with big business. It's called Zluty Baron (the Yellow Baron - though Zluty has other connotations), and its subtitle is taken from Babis' quote about running the state like a business ('firm' directly translated). I've ordered it, in the expectation that it will arouse some righteous fury.

There's a video here where she (the co-author) talks about the book, and journalism in the Czech (and Slovak) Rep since 1989 and in the wake of the Kuciak/Kusnirova murder last year. I fear it only has Czech and German subtitles though :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpG1hbmWQ0Q

250,000 Czechs demonstrated against Babis and his government at the weekend.

And it appears he has now been drummed out of office as SPOLU and the Pirates-STAN alliance have won 108 seats in the 200-seat parliament in today's election. ODS have been as Eurosceptic as Babis in the past, but the four other parties they would rely upon for a majority are all much more pro-EU.

[Discordant Resonance]

And tonight, Austrian Chancellor Kurz has resigned over a corruption scandal.

[Lang Spoon]

Excellent, that wee shite needs to be consigned to oblivion, makes "landlords are just better people" Varadkar seem empathetic. It's been a good couple of weeks in Central Europe, bar Poland but hey.

[Discordant Resonance]

We'll see how strong the opposition are there with the pro-Europe protest tomorrow.

[ursus arctos]

The fact that Kurz is remaining both head of the party and head of the parliamentary party makes his "resignation" more operatic than substantive.