If Poland and Hungary have been able to undermine democracy and the rule of law it is partly due to the largesse of the European Union (EU), at least according to a new Bloomberg analysis. This article is published by Democracy Digest. Here is an excerpt:

Poland and Hungary have used the largesse of the European Union to undermine democracy and the rule of law, according to a new Bloomberg analysis:

The awkward truth is that the populist leaderships of Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Warsaw and Viktor Orban in Budapest have been using European largesse for years to tighten their grip on power and undermine EU unity. Put bluntly, Brussels has bankrolled an insurrection it’s now trying to put down by making future cash transfers contingent on adhering to its model of democracy.

Hundreds of billions of euros of EU cash has gone toward everything from new hospitals and schools to highways and high-speed rail links, funds that are given to poorer regions to catch up with richer ones, note analysts Wojciech Moskwa, Zoltan Simon, and Rodney Jefferson. It’s also been channeled into social programs and enabled “great possibilities of patronage” as leaders used funds and contracts to reward political allies, says Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European Studies at Oxford University.

Read the full article here.