Thread by @astroehlein

In her #SOTEU speech yesterday, @vonderleyen reaffirmed @EU_Commission commitment to rule of law & said EU money would be “protected against any kind of fraud, corruption & conflict of interest.”

Good.

The EU should use its budget to uphold democracy:
hrw.org/news/2020/09/1…

The EU urgently needs to equip itself with a robust tool tying member states’ access to EU funds to respect for core democratic obligations.

This has been a long time coming, and - thankfully - it seems Council, Commission and Parliament are all headed in the right direction.

The ball is now in Germany's court, because it holds the EU’s rotating presidency until December 2020.

It thus becomes a matter of Merkel's legacy: will she reinforce the foundations of democracy in Europe before she departs the stage?

Germany needs to work other EU countries to ensure that a functioning system is established to prevent rights-abusing governments in the EU from exploiting their access to the EU’s budget while flouting the rule of law.

Cough, cough, Hungary... Cough, cough, Poland...

This has been underway for 2 years - in 2018 the Commission proposed rule-of-law budget conditionality & in July 2020, EU leaders agreed to establish a process to protect the budget from breaches of core EU principles. But details remain open to negotiation among EU member states

Key issues that will be addressed during the upcoming negotiations include the majority required for member states to approve or reject the Commission’s proposed decisions under the system and the scope of violations that could trigger action.

The number of votes required to trigger the process at the EU Council should be designed to prevent a small number of rights-violating governments from shielding one another.

EU member states should back the EU Commission’s proposal that the EU Council could only reject decisions to cut funds by a qualified majority.

This would provide sufficient safeguards against disproportionate decisions, while protecting the process from political bargains.

The process should ensure that a broad range of breaches to democratic values could lead the Commission to recommend cutting funds to EU member states. These should include attacks on the independence of the judiciary, as well as state interference in the media and civil society.

The process should also seek to ensure that EU funding cannot be used to promote intolerance or discriminatory policies, including against women’s rights and the rights of LGBT people and other minorities.

The process should be carried out in a way that will avoid punishing EU citizens for the actions of their rights-abusing governments. It should assess impact and seek to divert rather than cut funding where necessary.

Of course, the ruling party in Hungary is trying to pretend it can stop all this - the last thing Orbán wants is to pay a price for creating the EU's first dictatorship.

But the reality is that all the institutions are pushing this now, and Merkel can stand up to his blackmail.

I know the whole process seems long and, well, processy… but the core question is simple:

Does the EU want to defend its most important values - democracy & human rights - using its most important tool - money?

Given the political momentum now, it seems like it does.

Good.

And as a quick PS to this thread, I would just highlight a few other points of her #SOTEU speech that seem promising in terms of upholding fundamental rights.

First, a very welcome commitment to LGBT rights:

And this on racism:

And this… Important words recognising the reality and the need for EU leaders to start prioritising human life over far-right rants.

If the EU makes a new policy based on solidarity & "Saving lives at sea is not optional", it will be a big step forward

With all of these #SOTEU pledges, of course, the challenge is to turn core EU values into actual policy. As always.

But at least some things seem to be moving in the right direction now.

Another bit of welcome news in the #SOTEU speech - and another thing that has been long in the making and needs to be finalised...