Bloomberg: EU Wants Members to Respect Values or Take Pay Cut

The European Union represents values as much as much as trade, political or economic relationships – and its staff proposes reducing budgets of member states that weaken the rule of law and tolerate corruption. The European Commission has proposed a $1.3 trillion budget that would “make it more difficult for nationalist governments to use the union’s money to garner voter loyalty,” explains Leonid Berehidsky for Bloomberg. Because EU budgets require unanimous approval, “Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, and Poland’s behind-the-scenes ruler, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, feel relatively secure that their countries will remain the biggest net recipients of EU funds even though they are challenging the orthodoxy on common values.” The new regulation would require majority approval in the European Parliament and a qualified majority in the European Council representing 65 percent of the EU’s population, and would allow member states to cut funds to countries with corruption and minimal accountability. Poland and Hungary combined represent less than 10 percent of the EU’s population. – YaleGlobal