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While Emmanuel Macron will take the rotating presidency of the European Union on January 1, the elected LREM points to the difficulty of member states in upholding democratic values in Poland and Hungary.
“The European Union must be firm, including with its members”, said LREM MEP Stéphane Séjourné, president of the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, on Friday November 19 on franceinfo. A firmness displayed as France will take the rotating presidency of the European Union in January. Emmanuel Macron will have several sensitive subjects to manage: the migration crisis on the border with Belarus, or the decline of the rule of law within the EU in Hungary and Poland.
With Poland and Hungary, affirms Stéphane Séjourné,“We have to differentiate between two issues: there are the subjects of the rule of law and democracy. It is the independence of the judiciary, the freedom of the press, it is our ability to influence the fundamentals of public freedoms which are a requirement for the 27 Member States “. And, recalls the MEP LREM, “for that there are sanctions which are envisaged.”
Today the difficulty of Europeans is that part of the European political class is almost more afraid of the game of possible empty chairs in Europe because it is the unanimity of the council that prevails, and a member state can block the work of the Council.
Stéphane Stayedto franceinfo
For Stéphane Séjourné, the 27 must be uncompromising: “We need to succeed in this mechanism to give credibility to our sanctions, which today have never been applied.”
Poland received between 2008 and 2020, 150 billion euros from the EU, recalls LREM MEP, “and we are entitled to demand a certain number of democratic elements”. “Sanctions are not made to be applied, they are made so that countries respect and be afraid of sanctions. They still have to be afraid of sanctions.”