Everyone who cares about democracy in the world - except those with clinically meaningful depression - should be reading the wonderful blog by Eva Balogh, Hungarian Spectrum ( http://bit.ly/fui2mH ) who covers what’s happening in that sad country. Ms. Balogh had great hopes that the Fidesz government would be forced to modify its odious new Media Law by liberal opinion in Europe and the disapproval of the EU. Today’s entry on how the “Council of Europe” was easily outmaneuvered shows that her hopes were misplaced.
It also shows that there is nothing in the EU as presently constituted that has any interest in whether or not its individual members are democratic countries - as one would expect, but many assume. Moreover, there is no reason to assume that when democratically suspect countries enter the EU in the future - such as Turkey - they will encounter pressure to move back towards democracy. It’s far more likely that the behavior of Turkey’s ruling party will only serve to “encourager les autres.”

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