The German state of Thuringia could get the Hungary treatment from the EU if the “wrong” government comes to power.
The EU could hit the German state of Thuringia with €1.5 billion in funding cuts if it exercises democracy and installs the wrong government led by the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The proposal to cut funding to the entire German state comes from the influential Jacques Delors Centre (JDC), a think tank at the Hertie School in Berlin, with a former EU commission advisor, Luise Quaritsch, suggesting cutting EU funding if the AfD comes to power.
She writes: “Right-wing populist and extreme parties are gaining support across Europe,” and the consequences of this can be seen “in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.”
In the case of Hungary and Poland, the EU has already been active using its “rule-of-law” instrument, which is a relatively new tool Brussels gained back in 2020. It has allowed Brussels to freeze billions of funding to Hungary in an attempt to oust Viktor Orbán’s government from power.
However, she argues that such a tool is not only suitable for states, but also for regions within nations, writing that Brussels can “use almost all of its instruments to take action against the authoritarian government of a federal state.”