法治的欧盟

民主的共识机制中凝聚着人类的某种高贵：“尊重，并倾听每一个人。”但同时，这一套机制有效运作的前提是所有的参与者都能尊重基本的游戏规则，机制在设计时甚少考虑，当某些不遵守基本规则的成员参与其运作时，共识该如何凝聚？

欧盟的童话故事，正在走向下一章。

Part 1 总理，影子，与攫取的声音         

在眼睁睁看着匈牙利和波兰的民族主义政府不断地挑战民主制度的底线数年后，欧盟终于在今年决定和这些政府划清界限，宣布只有遵守欧盟基本规则的成员国才能得到欧盟的预算授权以及新冠肺炎的紧急救助基金。得到消息后，匈牙利和波兰政府恬不知耻地威胁要否决欧盟下一个七年的财政预算以及紧急救助基金和其他所有待审议的条款，除非这一新规被废除

After years of passively watching nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland undermine democratic rule, the European Union finally drew the line this year and declared that disbursements from the E.U. budget and a special coronavirus relief fund would be contingent on each member’s adherence to the rule of law. Hungary and Poland have shamelessly retaliated by threatening to veto the Union’s next seven-year budget, emergency funds and all, unless the condition is scrapped.

布达佩斯和华沙一如既往地用抗议来表达他们对这一新规的“不屑一顾”，称欧盟此举如同他们的前苏联统治者。匈牙利总理维克托·欧尔班傲慢地说：“这不是我们创建欧盟的初衷，我们不是为了复活苏联才创建这个联盟。”该总理的表态并没有多少可信度，尤其是考虑到布达佩斯和华沙的极右翼政府一直都欣然从欧盟获得巨额补贴。

The cynical reactions of Mr. Orban and the right-wing Law and Justice government in Warsaw demonstrated how far they have strayed from the fundamental principles they signed on to when they joined the European Union. They make no bones about it: Hungarian and Polish officials recently met to set up a joint institute to combat the “suppression of opinions by liberal ideology.”

欧尔班先生与波兰法正党（法律与正义党）政府嘲讽质疑的态度恰恰表明，他们已经远远背离了二者在加入欧盟时所签字同意的基本共识，且对这一共识缺乏基本的尊重。匈牙利和波兰的政府官员近日举行了一场会面，筹划建立一个研究所来对抗所谓“自由主义意识形态对其他意识形态的压制”

尤其是欧尔班先生，他一直在系统性地削弱司法的独立地位，要求媒体和出版社的服从以遏制公民社会的发展。在其政党青民盟完全控制了议会的情况下，欧尔班利用2020年三月新冠肺炎大流行期间的紧急情况获得了不受限制的权力，这在实际上让他拥有了通过合法程序摆脱任期限制的能力。

The cynical reactions of Mr. Orban and the right-wing Law and Justice government in Warsaw demonstrated how far they have strayed from the fundamental principles they signed on to when they joined the European Union. They make no bones about it: Hungarian and Polish officials recently met to set up a joint institute to combat the “suppression of opinions by liberal ideology.”

Mr. Orban in particular has systematically worked to curtail the independence of the judiciary, bring the press to heel and curb civil society. With Fidesz, his nationalist party, in full control of Parliament, he took advantage of the coronavirus pandemic in March to assume broad and open-ended emergency powers that effectively allow him to rule by decree for as long as he wants.

Part 4 喧嚣的沉默                          

到目前止，欧盟的轮值主席国主席德国联邦总理默克尔一直不愿与欧尔班和卡钦斯基公开决裂。周四，欧盟领导人召开了视频会议，欧尔班和波兰总理马泰乌什·莫拉维茨基亦有出席，在会后，默克尔仅仅宣布这是“一个我们必须面对的严重问题，我们必须诚恳认真地解决它”

So far, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, whose country currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, has been reluctant to enter into an open war with Mr. Orban or Mr. Kaczynski. After a video conference of E.U. leaders on Thursday — including Mr. Orban and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland — Ms. Merkel declared only that it was “a serious problem that we have to solve and we will work hard and earnestly on it.”

解决方案应该注重于迫使匈牙利和波兰让步。因为无论成员国间有怎样的矛盾——即使像英国脱欧所展现的那样，可能数量颇多而积重难返——欧盟的核心理念永远不会改变，这是一个基于民主价值观共识而建立的共同体

That work should focus on compelling Hungary and Poland to back down. Whatever other disagreements E.U. members may harbor — and, as Britain’s exit showed, these are many and deep — the concept of the Union as a community of democratic values has remained at its heart.

如果匈牙利和波兰这一相当于敲诈的行为获得成功，那么其他一直举棋不定的成员国或许也将纷纷效仿。比如斯洛文尼亚——已经公然表态同情波兰和匈牙利的处境。自由和民主运动将遭受重大的挫折。尤其是当欧尔班先生公开称赞美国总统特朗普，表示和巴西总统博索纳罗，土耳其的总理埃尔多安以及特朗普的前智囊史蒂夫·班农有着共同目标时，我们应该意识到欧盟中这一现象的出现绝非偶然。

If Hungary and Poland succeed in what amounts to blackmail, other wavering members — Slovenia, for one, has already signaled that it is sympathetic to their cause — would follow suit, and liberal democracy would suffer a major setback. It is not by chance that Mr. Orban, in particular, has openly lauded President Trump and has found common cause with the likes of Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Mr. Trump’s former political strategist Steve Bannon.

欧盟终于找到了一个有效的手段来制衡其不遵守规则的成员国，向其重申西方民主的基本原则：法治。同时，欧盟必须表明它已经做好了使用该手段的准备

The European Union has finally found a lever to compel members to hew to the fundamental tenet of Western democracy, the rule of law. The Union must make clear that it is prepared to use it.

原文链接https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/opinion/eu-poland-hungary.html