French and Dutch voted ignored? Hardly. Their no votes caused the proposed Constitution to be shelved. Over the next 3 years it was amended to become the Lisbon treaty.
When Ireland voted no on the Lisbon treaty, over 40% of voters stated that not knowing enough about the treaty as the primary reason for their vote, followed by a lack of clarity on certain issues.
The EU gave clarity and legal reassurances on the issues identified (turning some of the more open-ended clauses into more tightly defined ones - kind of like making mini-amendments) to address these concerns and asked them to vote again.
The added clarity and legal reassurances seemed to have satisfied the Irish since they approved the treaty. They obviously didn't feel deceived or coerced since their support for the EU is now amongst the highest of all member states.
The actions taken against Austria, Poland, and Hungary have been in response to their not upholding membership and treaty obligations that they signed up to. If a state is a member of the EU it must follow EU rules and uphold its standards.
When that far-right party became part of the Austrian coalition government the EU gave Austria the diplomatic cold shoulder. Business continued as usual, but they were essentially snubbed. Essentially a little childish, but this was in response to their very belligerent languange
Imagine if the referendum was never a thing (and it wasn't then) but instead of the LibDems the Tories went into coalition with UKIP (if they had won any seats, which they didn't) who made it their mission to be as obstructionist and disruptive as possible re the EU.
The diplomatic snub didn't last long, possibly because it quickly became clear that the far-right party had little actual voice in government.
Possibly because it turned out that populist bluster didn't translate into actual political power and they showed little actual ability to govern the much heralded far-right takeover of government in Austria's recent elections didn't happen.
In Poland, the ruling party was (is) trying to replace the independent judiciary with government-appointed judges. This is (rightly) considered *very* undemocratic - imagine if the Tories fired all the high court judges and replaced it with ones they chose based on their loyalty.
The EU (rightly) took exception with this as not having an independent judiciary is incompatible with EU membership. The Polish government argues that the judiciary is corrupt (which may be true) but replacing judges with an inherently corruptible system is unacceptable.
Government can make laws and it can change laws. It is *not* above the law and cannot break laws. An independent judiciary upholds the law and can hold the government (and everyone else) to account. The judiciary *must* be independent in order to do its duty. That's democracy.
Hungary is... well, teetering on the edge of outright fascism. It should go without saying that this is against the conditions of EU membership. Dodgy elections, intimidation of rival parties, ethnic repatriations and deportations - this is Nazi Germany in the early 30's stuff.
It is entirely right that the EU issue a rebuke for the shit that's going down there. If they continue, I expect that Hungary may be kicked out of the EU.
Greece was (is) an issue with the EuroZone, not the EU. For starters, they should never have been allowed to join the Euro - their economy was simply not ready. Their government made some pretty big promises in order to get accepted and they failed to carry out most of them.
They didn't collect taxes (especially from the super-rich shipping companies who basically bough politicians who gave them exemptions), had really generous benefits (especially retirement), rampant corruption, and ran up massive debts.
In return for loans/handouts from the EZ/EU, they were supposed to take measures to balance their budgets. They didn't. When it reached crisis point (and interest became sky high), rather than make changes they voted in a government that promised even more generous benefits.
When "gib monys pls" was rejected, they threatened a default. An ambitious restructuring which would have lessened the austerity measures might have worked, but given that it was proposed after weeks of telling the EZ to go fuck itself it was not well received.
The three players they relied on were the IMF, the EZ, Germany (who were supplying a large chunk of the bail-out money), and to a much lesser extent the EU (limited to essentially a whip-round of countries already suffering from austerity imposed by the financial crisis).
The IMF were having none of it, they wanted extreme austerity.
The EZ were on the fence, but for political reasons Germany was not disposed to bail Greece out any further - perhaps because the issue of Nazi invasion of Greece in WWII kept being brought up by the Greek government.
The EZ were on the fence, but for political reasons Germany was not disposed to bail Greece out any further - perhaps because the issue of Nazi invasion of Greece in WWII kept being brought up by the Greek government.
The compromise was not as severe as the IMF wanted to impose, though more severe than the EU would have probably liked. Ultimately, this was mainly on the Greeks for not meeting their budgetary obligations, not taking responsibility for their actions, and playing econ chicken.
The IMF are (and have always been) pretty dickish about countries not balancing budgets and refusing to implement countermeasures. The EZ were not very sympathetic and quite technocratic - but in the end the ability to further bail them out depended on Germany supplying the cash.
This should be cautionary tail against biting the hand that feeds you. Germany continued supplying money time and again, but eventually Greece crossed the line with that Nazi shit.
Note that despite all the threats to leave (or get kicked out of) the EuroZone, there was no desire by the Greeks to leave the EU. The Greeks may have wanted to ditch the Euro, but they never wanted to leave the EU.
The EU didn't want Greece to leave the EuroZone because it could be seen as a failure of the currency. However, it never wanted to or threatened to kick Greece out of the EU.
*French and Dutch votes ignored
