Manfred Weber, the Leader of the European People’s Party (EPP), discussed the European Union’s plan to blackmail member states that don’t toe the bloc’s line on issues like migration, such as Hungary and Poland. This will be done by making their share of the EU’s budget contingent on how well they meet the bloc’s vague “rule of law” standards, Weber says, especially now that many countries have been hit hard by the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown.
Weber, who leads the European Parliament’s largest party, made the remarks in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung last week.
The EU is currently in talks to prepare its next seven-year budget, which will come into effect in 2021. Weber discussed the proposal by Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s President, to make the allocation of each member state’s share of the budget, as well as its share of aid to deal with the effects of the pandemic, contingent on the “state of the rule of law” in each country.
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