After the yellow card came the red card.

That was the message of Berlin, delivered in advance of today’s EU summit, to Hungary and Poland, which donned the mantle of the rebels  of Europe.

Ahead of the summit Michael Roth, the German Minister of State for Europe declared that it would be irresponsible for the two countries to effectively veto the EU’s Pandemic Recovery Fund as that would hinder the management of the grave repercussions of the pandemic.

He made it perfectly clear that if that were to happen then the remaining member-states would proceed on their own thereby rendering any veto attempt useless and futile.

Under such great pressure and lacking the requisite domestic support the two countries’ leaders did an about-face and the matter ended.

When Germany interests are at stake Berlin knows how to persuade other member-states and call them to order.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had yet another reason to defuse the bombs of Budapest and Warsaw as she considers the Recovery Fund to be a significant part of her political legacy and has put great stock in the project.

Unfortunately, in the case of Turkey Germany’s interests do not coincide with Greece’s.

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