Opinion: Poland and Hungary toe EU line in face of Russian aggression

Ronan McCrea - It has suddenly become harder for both countries to reject union norms on rule of law, says Professor Ronan McCrea (UCL Laws). For many, the European Union's golden age was the post-1989 "end of history" era when international integration and liberal democracy seemed unstoppable. That optimistic era now seems very distant. However, the events of the last two weeks, instead of heralding the decline of the union, may be transforming it into a significantly more cohesive entity. For years the EU has been disparaged as an entity whose cumbersome structures made it unable to act decisively in relations with outside powers or to combat the slow disintegration of the union from within caused by the attacks on liberal democracy by some of its own members. The past fortnight has seen potentially transformative change on both of these fronts. A union that spent years unsuccessfully attempting to come up with an effective joint position in relation to the wars in the former Yugoslavia, reacted to the invasion of Ukraine with astonishing unity and firmness.