If a country does not respect the judgements of the European Court of Justice on the rule of law, the EU should cut all money until it does.

“In Poland, there is an existential threat, because the Polish government created a judicial system like in Venezuela. To stop this, we have one mechanism, but it needs to be backed up. And it’s the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. It will issue judgements. The trouble is, Poland is likely to ignore those judgements. It’s already doing so. And then the EU falls apart. So, what are we supposed to do? My recommendation was and it still is, and I think we’ll need to do it eventually: If a country does not respect the judgements of the European Court of Justice on the rule of law, we should cut all money until it does.”

Boris Marte made The Call to migration expert and Chairman of the European Stability Initiative (ESI) Gerald Knaus to discuss with him how it feels to be declared public enemy in one European country, the master-myth massive migration, integration failures and challenges, the concept of humane borders presented in his new book as well as the current rule-of-law crisis within the EU.

This text and video is published under the Creative Commons License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. The name of the author/rights holder should be mentioned as followed. Author: Jovana Trifunović and Igor Bararon / tippingpoint.net. Cover picture: Filmstill from the Video “Cut all the Money!” The Call with Gerald Knaus. Illustration: © Norma Nardi

The Call

The COVID-19 pandemic shattered lives, put social contracts and international relations to test, disrupted economies. Governance systems, good and bad, are in distress. The better off are confined to home offices uncertain of their livelihoods. The less lucky face new heights of digital authoritarianism or sheer violence. The omnipresent media seem to be failing its watchdog function even in world’s oldest democracies. Already eroded, global democracy standards are yet to receive the full blow of pandemic’s political, social and economic consequences.

The video series The Call is an attempt to try to understand better the political, cultural and social implications of the pandemic by asking thinkers and doers from the ERSTE Foundation Community to weigh in with their thoughts and predictions.