Politics
Will the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU be suspended?
This is the question some activists are asking themselves in Spain The presidency of the Council of the European Union (Consillium) is rotating and changes every six months, with Spain scheduled to take over on 1 July, but there are doubts about this.
A Spanish alliance is calling for Spain to be declared to have serious systemic deficiencies in its rule of law. The request is based on its own complaints and its own report on the Spanish rule of law in 2022.
This Alliance is made up of four associations and a social movement whose activity is related to the denunciation of corruption, especially institutional corruption, and the administrative and judicial defence of the victims of what they call “(institutional) metamafia” or the defence of human rights. The Alliance is called “Denouncers of Judicial Authoritarianism” (Denunciantes del Autoritarismo Judicial).
The promoter and spokesman of the Alliance is Javier Marzal and states that:
"Our set of complaints to the European Commission and the Spanish Supreme Court reflect the Spanish institutional reality and the political and economic danger it poses to the European Union and its member countries".
The first of the complaints cover the first four years of the current Spanish government led by Pedro Sánchez. It was sent on 11 November 2022 to the European Commission and, unusually, the Commission accepted to process it in the Economic Unit F3, registering the complaint in Ares(2022)8174536. The main allegations are the falsification of numerous public documents and the systematic usurpation of Parliament by the government, both to legislate and to increase public spending without control, up to double the maximum spending of the previous government in 2022.
The second of the complaints was sent on 27 January 2023 and it was requested that it also be processed in the Directorate for Fundamental Rights and the Rule of Law, and the request was accepted and the complaints were processed in Unit C1 as Ares(2023)1525948. This double processing is also unprecedented.
The set of complaints was completed with the amplifying complaint of 15 April 2023 and Marzal states that: “it is the peacetime complaint with the most brutal facts in the history of Europe”.
The following day the Alliance submitted its report on the Spanish rule of law, requesting that the European Commission declare that Spain has serious systemic deficiencies in its rule of law and that it promote the suspension of the Spanish presidency of the Consillium until Spain demonstrates that it has a rule of law. The Alliance proposes that the suspension be put to a vote in the Council of the European Union (among the presidents of the governments of the Member States) and in the European Parliament.
This request has also been made by two MEPs at the annual plenary session of the European Parliament in January 2023, namely Hungary’s Eniko Gyori and Portugal’s Eniko Gyori. Eniko Gyori was the Hungarian Ambassador to Spain from 2014 to 2019, so she knows the Spanish situation well.
Complaints and petitions regarding the rule of law and the Consillium Presidency have also been sent to several MEPs, the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union and several European governments.
This is the first time that individuals and European officials have called for a declaration of dysfunction of the rule of law in an EU Member State and the suspension of the Consillium Presidency.
As a precedent to these actions, it should be noted that the European Commission itself warned Spain in October 2022 that it would not grant any more funds for reconstruction after the Coronavirus Crisis to Spain if the Spanish government did not detail the destination of these funds.
The European Commission was unable to inform the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT) about the destination of the Next Generation EU funds transferred to Spain. The President of CONT, Monika Hohlmeier, decided to meet with the Spanish government in Spain to clarify this serious matter. A Commission of ten MEPs, led by Germany’s Hohlmeier, were in Madrid between 20 and 22 February.
At the end of the meetings, she said: “It is impossible to trace the funds to the final beneficiary”, because Spain has not fulfilled its commitment to set up the CoFFEE platform that the Spanish government promised Brussels would be up and running by November 2021.
MEP Susana Solís said: “We don’t know where 3 billion that has already been allocated have gone”. Marzal says that “In Spain, the European Union is strongly criticised for having granted 37 billion euros to Spain, with no guarantees as to the destination of the Next Generation EU funds, and also knowing full well the contempt for the legality of the current government”.
The Coronavirus Crisis and the Next Generation EU funds have led the European Union into a difficult political and economic situation that is beginning to eliminate excessive permissiveness with governments. We must remember that the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) published in 2018 that in the European Union corruption took 4.8% of GDP, in this regard Marzal says that
"The figures of corruption in Spain and in the European Union do not allow us to affirm that the rule of law is working properly, as European officials irresponsibly claim. Corruption threatens to economically collapse several countries and the European Union itself, but the situation is an opportunity to solve this serious problem".
The Alliance’s website www.contraautoritarismojudicial.org contains the denunciations and the report in both English and Spanish. The report is also available in French and German.
Author
Police in New Caledonia have arrested the leader of the country’s independence protest, Reuters reports. Christian Thane was detained before giving a press conference. Apart from Thane, seven other people have been arrested.
Thane led a branch of the Caledonian Union, which organized barricades in the capital Noumea that disrupted traffic, movement and food supplies. He was among the pro-independence political figures who met French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to New Caledonia.
Nine people died, including two policemen, in the unrest that gripped New Caledonia last month after France proposed electoral reforms allowing thousands of French residents who have lived in the French Pacific territory for more than 10 years to vote.
Local Kanaks fear this will dilute the vote and make it more difficult to hold a future independence referendum. According to Paris, the measure is necessary to improve democracy.
Macron announced last week that he was suspending electoral reform. Pro-independence groups for New Caledonia want it to be fully withdrawn before dialogue on the island’s political future can begin again.
New Caledonia’s international airport reopened this week, although a curfew is still in place and several thousand French police reinforcements remain.
Illustrative Photo by Kindel Media: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-person-s-hands-on-the-table-wearing-handcuffs-7773260/
Author
EU enlargement is a way to foster peace and stability in Europe, increase prosperity for Europeans and create opportunities for companies.
Countries preparing to join benefit from closer ties with the EU, stronger support for fundamental rights as well as from funding and expertise from the EU to make the process easier.
In December 2023, EU leaders announced that the EU would recognise Georgia as a candidate country and would start accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova. The accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova formally started on 25 June 2024. In March 2024, EU leaders also agreed to launch accession talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Which countries want to join the EU?
The EU has recognised Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and Türkiye as candidate countries for EU membership, though accession negotiations with Türkiye have been frozen since 2018. This is something MEPs had called for on various occasions due to concerns over the situation in Türkiye, including the rule of law and media freedom.
Kosovo is a potential candidate country.
Who can join the EU? What are the requirements for EU membership?
In order to apply for EU membership, a country has to be European and respect the EU’s democratic values. It also needs stable institutions guaranteeing democracy and the rule of law; a functioning market economy; and the ability to take on and carry out the obligations of EU membership.
What support do candidate countries and potential candidate countries benefit from?
Candidate countries and potential candidate countries benefit from EU funding, detailed policy advice, as well as Association Agreements, giving far-reaching access to the EU’s internal market.
How does the enlargement process work?
A country can become an official candidate once it meets basic political, economic and reform criteria. It can then start formal negotiations on 35 chapters covering many different policy areas with the EU.
Once negotiations and reforms have been completed, an accession treaty is finalised, which needs to be ratified by all existing EU member states and the country itself before the country can join the EU.
What is the history of EU enlargement?
The EU started in 1952 as the European Communities with six founding members: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Netherlands. The first enlargement took part in 1973 when Denmark, Ireland and the UK joined.
In the 1980s, Greece joined in 1981, followed by Spain and Portugal five years later after emerging from dictatorships in the 1970s. In 1985 Greenland, which is an autonomous part of Denmark with a local government responsible for judicial affairs, policing and natural resources, became the first territory to leave the EU.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union changed everything again. In 1995 Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the EU. This was followed by two waves of Central and Eastern European countries joining. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia as well as Cyprus and Malta joined in 2004. In 2007, it was the turn of Bulgaria and Romania.
Croatia became the most recent country to join the EU in 2013. Meanwhile, the UK left the EU in 2020.
What is the current situation for EU enlargement?
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine submitting applications for EU membership. The EU formally launched accession talks with Moldova and Ukraine in June 2024, while Georgia was recognised as a candidate country in December 2023.
The EU is also keen to give Western Balkan countries, who have been part of the enlargement process for a long time, a clear path to membership to help stabilise the region and promote fundamental reforms and good neighbourly relations.
What is the role of the Parliament?
MEPs debate and vote on annual progress reports for each country, which is an opportunity to identify areas of concerns.
The Parliament’s approval is also required before a country can join the EU.
Parliament has remained supportive of the enlargement process. President Roberta Metsola called it the EU’s strongest geopolitical tool in a speech to the European Council in October 2023. “That is why the European Parliament had called for Ukraine and Moldova to receive EU candidate status,” she said. “This status gives a clear European perspective to these nations and serves as a powerful impetus for advancing democratic reforms. A quick look back at the last 20 years can illustrate the transformative power of enlargement. That is why we want to go the next step by the end of the year if those countries are ready.”
On various occasions Parliament called for the EU’s doors to be opened to Ukraine and Moldova. In July 2022 MEPs welcomed the Council decision to start the accession process with the two countries.
Parliament continues to support the accession of the Western Balkans countries to the EU. In a resolution adopted in June 2020, MEPs call on the EU to do more to make the enlargement process for these countries a success.
In a resolution adopted in December 2023, Parliament called on the EU to open accession talks with Moldova and Ukraine as well as with Bosnia and Herzegovina, provided the country takes certain reform steps. MEPs also called for a clear timetable to conclude negotiations by the end of this decade and for Georgia to be recognised as a candidate country.
Source: European Commission
Author
“War is always destructive. To remain silent in the face of the cruelty of war is shameful! It is our duty and mission to protect and promote peace. “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9). With these words, His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew began his short address to the International Summit for Peace in Ukraine, which was attended by leaders and representatives of about one hundred countries and international organizations, and which took place on June 15-16, 2024, in the Bürgenstock resort , Switzerland.
The Patriarch emphasized the importance and value of dialogue, which, in his words, is the driving force of this conference.
Regarding the granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, he emphasized that the Ecumenical Patriarchate responded to the “pastoral needs of the Orthodox believers in Ukraine”: “On January 5, 2019, in response to the pastoral needs of the Orthodox believers in Ukraine, the Ecumenical Patriarchate decreed the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as an autocephalous or self-governing ecclesiastical entity independent of the Moscow Patriarchate. And we did this despite all the difficulties and at any cost, because we firmly believe that Orthodox Christians in Ukraine deserve their own church voice. We are all here to support a just and lasting peace in a sovereign Ukraine. May God rest in peace all those who tragically lost their lives and give strength to all those who defend the peace.”
According to a press release, during the summit the Ecumenical Patriarch had the opportunity to meet and talk with the presidents of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, France Emmanuel Macron and Georgia Salome Zourabishvili, with the Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Vatican Secretary of State Monsignor Petro Parolin, with Hakan Fidan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, and others.
An interesting detail of the picture of the meeting is the attempt to create a “problem” around the participation of the Ecumenical Patriarch, who attended the meeting as a representative of Turkey, but with the flag of the Patriarchate. Turkey was represented by its foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, and by Patriarch Bartholomew. Highlighting the coverage of the “church participation” in the meeting in the pro-Russian media was the status of the patriarch, who participated with the title of Ecumenical Patriarch. In Turkey, however, his status is recognized only as “Greek Patriarch of Fener”. The presence of his signature as “Ecumenical Patriarch” under the general declaration led the Turkish authorities to emphasize again that they do not recognize Patriarch Bartholomew such a title and role in world Orthodoxy that was inherited from the Byzantine Empire, and he is only the head of the “Greek religious minority ” in the country and can only represent him. The Turkish foreign minister also denied having an official personal meeting with the patriarch within the framework of the conference. This position particularly impresses the Russian policy aimed at compromising and belittling the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at all levels and on all occasions.
Turkish media also noted that the Vatican, which attended with observer status through its secretary of state, did not sign the joint declaration signed by Turkey. South Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and the UAE did not sign the declaration. To date, the declaration has been signed by seventy-nine countries and six international organizations.
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