Listening to Ursula von der Leyen’s full response on Italy during her speech at Princeton University in the United States, one realizes that there is a certain discrepancy between the newspaper’s headlines and what the President of the European Commission. The whole speech is available on YouTube and von der Leyen’s answer can be heard to the minute 53. The question about the September 25 election comes from Erika Passoni, a graduate student in Princeton’s Germany department. “That’s exactly what I’ve been talking about with each of you about democracy. Democracy is an ongoing process, the path of which never ends. You can’t put it in a box and set it aside. But the point is how people fight for democracy. We’ll see how the elections go (in Italy, editor’s note), we just had the ones in Sweden ».
And then: «My approach is that every democratic government wants to work with us, we will work together. And it’s interesting to see how that European Council. There are many dynamics in the peer group. You are not just a country saying I want this, I want that. But you are in the European Council and you know that your future and well-being also depend on the other 26. That’s the beauty of democracy. Sometimes we’re slow, we talk a lot, I know. But democracy is also that ». “We’ll see the outcome of the elections,” he says, referring to Italy. But it is the next sentence is the most important: “If it comes to a difficult situation – I was just talking about Hungary and Poland – We have the tools. When things go in the right direction… And the people to whom responsible government is accountable play an important role ».
The reference from from the Leyen I’m there Poland and theHungary and not themItaly. His commission has just proposed to cut the funds Budapest if there are no rule of law reforms. While regarding Warsaw, the President herself had replied to an earlier question: “The Polish government does not want to change the laws as we have stipulated in the PNRR Treaty in order to restore the independence of judges. Therefore we cannot pay out the funds. Next Generation Eu is a contract between Member States and the Commission. It works like this: if you make these reforms, you have this money from your tranche. And the treaty with Poland provides the law to guarantee the independence of judges, which is currently no longer guaranteed in the country ».
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