I could not agree more with Meneldil. The EU is not the United Nations, it is instead an assembly of democracies. Franco couldn't join, Salazar couldn't join, the Greek colonels couldn't join, the communists states couldn't join. Not until they were democracies they couldn't. Similarly, if a country lapses into an undemocratic system, it will get kicked out. Less dramatic, if it has undemocratic parties in it's government, it risks resistance, even boycott, from other countries.

Like it or not, the EU is about spreading and safeguarding democracy in Europe. So sorry for all our authoritarian politicians out there. Don't like it? Leave. Get on a plane and fly to North Korea or Syria.
We just spend a disastrous century trying to keep communism, fascism, authroritarianism down. It nearly destroyed Europe. Never again.

Was Haider a nazi? Perhaps not.
But is it unreasonable for Europe to be very wary of nazism in Austria? Of Austrian politicians palling around with SS men, of singing the praise of Austrian moral superiority over lesser peoples, of Austrian anti-Semitism and praise for it's dark WWII history?
I think not.


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Haider died as he lived, over the limit and full of gas.
Alcohol promillage of 1.8, and doing 142 km an hour. Thank God he crashed before he hurt any innocents.


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Frag - you whine about Muslims undermining European values and democracy, trying to install Islamofascism. Yet you are disappointed when Europe actually tries to prevent Eurofascism?

TuffStuff - especially for you: you do realise Haider had many extramarital homosexual affairs? He was legendary in the Vienna gay scene.

PanzerJaeger - On meeting Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the Iraq war, Haider expressed the 'best wishes of the Austrian people and the Freedom party as well as their solidarity with the people of Iraq and their wise leadership'.
You will need to choose, PJ. A man can't both support America and European nazism. They are mortal enemies.