05.07.2021 – 15:57
At a recent EU summit, Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, looked to Viktor Orban, his Hungarian counterpart, and said what everyone was thinking: If you do not share our values, you must leave the EU.
Rutte’s rude attempt to make a member out of the club was also a reminder of one of the EU’s biggest flaws. There is no mechanism to evict countries.
This begs the question: When exactly should a bloc, club or organization be able to fire members out?
In the Hungarian case, Orban’s latest insult was a law that curbs sex education in a way that rudely stigmatizes homosexuality, in fact equating it with pedophilia. But Orban has despised EU values for years.
He has relinquished the rule of law, minority rights and press and academic freedoms.
Another member state, Poland, is almost as bad as Hungary in disregarding everything from gay rights to judicial independence.
With their illiberal cynicism, these two governments threaten to erase the identity of the EU as a club of democratic, tolerant and open societies.
And yet the tools available to discipline the wrong members are weak.
The key is a process set out in Article 7 of the EU treaties, which Brussels has initiated against both Poland and Hungary. It allows the bloc to remove a country from its voting rights if all other states identify a “serious and persistent violation” of EU values.
This unanimity requirement, however, means that Hungary and Poland can support each other and not have to worry.
Another mechanism – to link funding to the rule of law – was added last year, but it is unclear, messy and slow.
The reality is that the EU, which subjugates countries with difficult standards as they apply for membership, can do almost nothing to sanction them once they are inside and certainly cannot expel anyone.
In the early years of the NATO alliance, the US and other allies feared that some members, such as Italy, might become communists and serve as Trojan horses for the Soviets.
Recently, fraud has been Turkey, which has despised democratic norms, threatened allies like Greece, and even bought an air defense system from Russia that could allow that adversary to sabotage NATO equipment.
But NATO also cannot expel members.
In this sense, the EU and NATO differ from most other types of associations in this world. The United Nations, for example, is also a club of nation states, but they have a way of expelling members.
So does the Council of Europe, a human rights organization with 47 member states, including all 27 EU countries.
The ability to evict is also predetermined in organizations whose members are individuals.
The US Congress, like most parliaments, can expel members (and has done so 20 times), as can political parties, country clubs, schools, and other institutions.
In ancient Athens, the world’s first experiment in democracy, citizens regularly gathered to write the names of individuals on ceramic pieces called ostrakas. Anyone who received enough votes was expelled.
As usual in life, however, it gets complicated.
This also applies to countries.
The power to expel is nothing to diminish.
It should be used only in extreme circumstances and with an overwhelming consensus among members that it is necessary.
Even then, the eviction must always be reversible, so that the member in question has the chance and incentive to be corrected.
The EU must strike the right balance. This means adjusting its treaties to make sure deportation is rare but possible.
As this effort begins, Orban will have plenty of time to think about how high above his populist tree he wants to climb.
And Hungarians – who still have votes, after all – can decide if they prefer to exchange leaders and stay in a club they like.