On the EU, central Europe wants to have its cake and eat it

Comment Martin Flanagan

The standoff between the western European Union’s liberal values and the more authoritarian stamp in some of its central European members is approaching flashpoint.

At base, it seems Hungary and Poland wanted the economic and business benefits that would come in train when they joined the EU in 2004. But they have deep reservations about the EU’S commitment to free movement of people and the independence of the judiciary.

The UK is told repeatedly in the Brexit negotiations that it can’t have its cake and eat it in terms of restricting migration but wanting as much access to the single market as possible after our withdrawal from the EU.

But isn’t that what Viktor Orban’s Hungary and Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki are doing? Wanting the economic boost that comes with EU membership but not the liberal “baggage” that comes with it?

Cherry-picking is cherry-picking whether it is in London, Budapest or Warsaw.

Similar autocratic views come from president Tayyip Erdogan’s regime in Turkey, making it less likely than ever currently that Turkey will be admitted to the EU club while he blatantly cracks down on the freedom of the judiciary and journalists.

Austria elected a right-wing administration last year, and last month Brussels issued a public rebuke over Poland’s alleged breaches of EU law and values. It is rich that Poland’s harder line on uncontrolled migration comes from a country that has seen one of the biggest diasporas of young, skilled employees to the economies of the liberal West.

The EU, worried by nationalistic and populist pressures in other countries, is losing patience with Orban and Morawiecki. Their countries’ access to billions of euros in EU funds is said to be not a given in these fraught times if Hungary and Poland remain intransigent.

There has been talk of Poland’s judicial changes leading ultimately to Brussels suspending the country’s voting rights. A fractious split looms as the eastward spread of liberal constitutional values meets the red lines of central Europe.

And, as far as the integrity of the EU underpinning commercial benefits is concerned, the penny will drop for the UK business world that Brexit is no longer the only game in town.