by Richard A » Mon Jul 10, 2023 5:32 pm
Carpet dealer bravado maybe. But then, again. He might look at Hungary and say, hey, if they can cope with Orban, they can cope with me. OK, Orban didn't jail a similar proportion of his population, but he doesn't have any time for the EU's liberal values either. And he went into the last election with campaign posters that basically said, "Brussels's line on Ukraine is screwing our economy" without any serious consequences.
Of course, there's a major difference. May and then Johnson did an excellent job of taking up the EU's attention during a period that counted, so that the spotlight wasn't on Hungary or Poland so much. And the one time things did look uncomfortable, the UK voted with Hungary - allegedly on the basis of getting favours in return in the Brexit negotiations. Well, readers of this thread will know that I don't believe this was Britain's finest hour any more than the rest of you do. But the point is, that distraction isn't there any more. And Putin has very nicely crystallised the EU's line on autocrats.
But that opens the question, I wonder what Erdogan will ask for behind closed doors. And he may well discover that while Sweden wants to join NATO, NATO is less desperate to have Sweden. In an ideal world, yes, but we don't live in an ideal world - and now that Finland's joined, Putin cannot militarily attack Sweden without going through NATO states first. So his bargaining chips may be losing value.