The EU is facing budget problems. They have a fund planned for COVID recovery, but in the EU budgets can be vetoed. And the far right wing countries are blocking the budget. The budget was being tied to the need for countries to obey the rules, and the countries that don’t want to obey the rules have a right of veto.
There is a side lesson here – that the EU are trying to use legislation to punish people that are breaking rules, which is clearly the work of the courts. Confusing executive, legislative and judicial duties always causes problems.
Anyway, the interesting thing to me is to what extent we allow freedom to deviate from a societal democratic decision.
We see the same with the USA at present – do you accept the results of the vote or not? People need freedom to disagree, but to what extent should they be able to express that? Should they be able to ignore the vote even if the courts make decisions supporting Biden victory?
This will be coming home to us soon. As the vaccine is produced should we insist that people take it? In some countries children are excluded from school if they do not have all the vaccinations necessary. Should we be able to force people? And if we can remove the freedom to reject a vaccine what other freedom can we remove?
Watching the second episode of Rob Rinder’s family story from the holocaust is a reminder that state power must never be unlimited, no matter how many people vote for it.