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Dutch PM Mark Rutte broke an unspoken taboo by asking 'Can you found an EU without Hungary and Poland?' (Photo: Council of the European Union)

Could we found a new EU without Hungary and Poland?

On 9 September, a remarkable exchange took place in the Dutch parliament between prime minister Mark Rutte and Green-Left MP Bram van Ojik.

Discussing attempts to make disbursement of the €750bn coronavirus recovery fund conditional on EU member states' performance on democratic governance and the rule of law, Rutte asked "Can you make a budget via an intergovernmental agreement, or can you found an EU without Hungary and Poland?"

To someone outside the EU bubble, this may seem l...

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Disclaimer

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s, not those of EUobserver

Author Bio

Tom Theuns is assistant professor of political theory and European politics at Leiden University and associate researcher at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics, Sciences Po Paris.

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