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An escalating row over democratic values is threatening to reopen parts of the old Iron Curtain fault line between western and eastern Europe, as Poland and Hungary defy European Union pressure to toe the blocâs political line.
A long-simmering showdown, pitting the populist-right governments in Budapest and Hungary against a clutch of western European leaders and the Brussels bureaucracy and parliament, has come to a head in recent weeks, and become impossible to ignore.
The stoush strikes at the heart of the EUâs identity as a promoter and exporter of democratic values and the rule of law, forged almost three decades ago when it brought the former Soviet-bloc countries rapidly into its fold.