The failure to expel Orban’s MEPs from the biggest group in the European parliament is a betrayal of fundamental values Back in 2014, Donald Tusk was on his way to Brussels to become president of the European council. At Warsaw airport he bumped into Lech Wałęsa, Nobel peace laureate and veteran leader of Solidarity, the Gdańsk-based trade union movement which played such a crucial role in the end of communism in 1989. “Be careful out there,” Wałęsa warned Tusk. “I worry that the EU will break up, and they chose a Pole so that they have someone to blame.” Tusk was heading to Brussels as a passionate European, a staunch defender of what he called “fundamental” European values: solidarity, freedom and unity in the face of threats from inside and out. But Wałęsa’s words may have been prophetic. Tusk’s two-term stint, which has just ended, coincided with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the euro crisis in Greece, devastating terrorist attacks in cities across Europe, the 2015 refugee crisis which fuelled the rise of populism, and of course Brexit. If that wasn’t enough, the US elected Donald Trump, who launched a series of trade wars. Continue reading...
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