A timely reminder about what European values really are

“Anyone, like Hungary, who builds fences against war refugees or breaches press freedom and the independence of the justice system should be temporarily, or if needed forever, excluded from the EU.” – Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister, Jean Asselborn, speaking yesterday to the German daily newspaper Die Welt, in an unprecedented call by one European Union member state for the exclusion of another one.

Asselborn went on to explain to reporters, in Moscow, that the European Union has to protect its core values. “We can resolve the problem of Brexit but we can’t resolve the problems of the survival of the EU if we lose the essence of the EU. So what I told the German newspaper is not directed against one nation, it’s aimed at better understanding the essence and values of the EU,” he said.

Hungary’s government boss Viktor Orban responded in the idiom currently used by contemporary fascists, including the Malta’s governing Labour Party, making a personal statement about Asselborn and describing him as “condescending, uppity, and frustrated”. He couldn’t very well call him ‘part of the elite’ as he is a government boss himself – though this has not stopped Muscat and his henchmen from using the term to describe others in Malta, though they are the actual elite in charge.

Luxembourg’s Jean Asselborn

Hungary’s Viktor Orban