War of words rages between Orbán and Barroso

Does Barroso himself understand what democracy is? Why did he go to Ireland to put pressure on the Irish to ratify the Lisbon Treaty they already rejected? Barroso has no clue why the EU developed from the ashes of the Seciond World. Had Barroso done his homework on european integration, he would have learnt that an Irish scholar wrote about EU - how it would develop, its character and future prospects even before the French Founding fathers of the EU - Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman - were born in 1888 and 1886.

The EU is a corpse without a soul. Monnet's European Titanic is doomed. Because Barroso and his European leaders have ignored the crucial advice Schuman and Adenauer offered to Europeans concerning the survival of the European project. If European leaders want to learn th fate of their project, they must examine what the Irish scholar published about European integration about 70 years before the EU was born with th Schuman Plan.

To Greg B, Francis Codjoe and like-minded: If he honestly feels the EU is a new USSR, Orban is free to take Hungary out of the EU - and forego on the billions of $ the country has been getting from the EU and the EU/IMF loans he is seeking.

Seriously, what is he thinking, begging for massive financial aid and promising to make amends when he is in Brussels, and then lambasting the EU as colonizers when he is in Budapest? Does he believe this stuff doesn't get translated? Does he think they are stupid, in Brussels?

This strategy of telling the foreign allies one thing and the folk back home something very different might have worked in the 19th century, when word didn't travel back quickly. But in this digital age it's a head-scratching strategy.

You have to laugh at the breathtaking hypocrisy of Barroso lecturing others on democracy! This man is an unelected bureaucrat with do democratic mandate whatsoever. At least Orban achieved his position as a result of a general election.

Even Vladimir Putin has more democratic legitimacy than any EU bureaucrat! The sooner the UK gets out of the sclerotic, declining and undemocratic entity that is the EU, the sooner it can become a real democracy again.

The EU does not know how people are suffering and so will Hungry. The EU is run by Dictators, sorry having to say it in public, but it is a fact. New members are not given enough time to up grade their country, while the old members are happy as they are, they had 50 years or so to catch up. All EU citizens have no idea what the hell is going in the EU.

Orbàn's government may not be the most democratic ; but he is right to stand up to Barosso , give him a mouthful of the truth . Out of 27 EU member states we hardly hear a peep out of any of them . Only two or three regularly voice opinions in public .
The EU is not in practical terms a democratic institution , for Mr Orbàn to liken it to the USSR is quite right , we call it the EUSSR . Mr Orbàn is not alone in seeing the EU become more of a communist state than a benevolent democracy , many people right across all European frontiers think the same .

European leaders (including Barroso) must read and Ancient Greece's applied democracy rather than pretending to know what democracy is and pretending to apply it to the European people.
Current Europe has no democracy unless the governance of European people by the nomenclature of EU and Eurozone is called "democracy" in order to cover their despicable deeds.

It is probably useless for the Commission to respond to anti-EU periodical and (pre or post) electoral declarations by occasional leaders of some of the 27 member states. It should limit itself to state with authority and precision what is the lasting,general and superior interest of Europe (including the MS concerned) and take all necessary, appropriate and legitimate action to ensure EU law is respected by each and every MS.

JG GIRAUD

Interestingly, I would have thought Orban knows exactly what he is talking about, having lived part of his life with his country's neck under the bootheel of the Kremlin (albeit, Bulgaria always seemed to me to be a willing "partner" of the USSR). I sincerely hope that countries like his in the EU will take advantage of EU funds to strengthen their infrastructures and then leave the EU - that is always assuming that the EU lasts. All empires/tyrants disappear eventually.

1. Has the EU pulled Hungary to join it? No! So why in this case Orban, and his country, including his today supporters insisted so much to join a "new USSR", if he knew what was USSR? Or just for some money? But money were conditioned, by sharing some values, so Orban has some obligations! If he doesn't like the new USSR, just get out!
2. I think he, and his supporters, have forgotten what was the real USSR! For him it would very useful to remember 1956! And 1968!
3. For Andrew C: is Putin more democratic? May you want to follow "democraticaly" Mr Khodorkovsky in Siberia?

'Barroso' and 'democracy' are two words which definitely do not sit well together.

Let's face it, Barroso wouldn't recognise democracy even if it jumped up and bit him on the backside.
He should remember that Orban has been elected by real people in a real election not appointed by the pseudo electorate who nominate the EU apparachiks.

In the first place, when Hungary joined the EU it wasn't as dictatorial as this. The current EU has strayed very far from its original purpose which was a union of nations and people, not a union of the market. Mr. Orban is absolutely right when he said that. And he doesn't want to leave the EU, he wants to bring the EU back to its source, as a human union not a union of money. He said Hungary doesn't want to be a colony. What we have experienced in the last eight years of the disastrous rule of the so-called Socialists, who were in reality robber capitalists, who opened the country wide to the outside investors and made it deeply indebted, was the experience of a colony. We wish to be treated not as second-grade citizens of Europe, we don't want to be treated with a double standard. We want to be treated as an equal nation to the others, and not forced by economic pressure to bend to the will of this outside super power of the EU. The EU calling Hungary's government dictatorial is really a case of the pot calling the kettle black. It really is projection. Orban has actually compromised on most things, only the question of the Central Bank vowing an oath to the contrary and maybe one or two other details are bones of contention. In any case, why shouldn't the Central Bank of a country serve the country rather than the outside investors? Why should that be an infringement of the independence of the Central Bank?

The real reason for this hysteria over Orban is that he has taxed the banks, the multinationals and made the banks come to an agreement for people who took out loans in Swiss francs which ballooned so far out that people were losing their homes because they couldnt' pay their loans back. Orban is also building low-cost housing for people who are losing their homes. A million people will be on the street if the government doesn't do something. The Socialists cry that he is creating a ghetto. You get the picture.

In any event, Orban was elected by a massive landslide the like of which Europe has not seen, and the like of which any leader would give an arm for. So they call him a populist. Well, the people back him. As Abraham Lincoln said a democracy is government from the people, by the people and for the people.