Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 10th of October 2017 to The Sounding Line.

Geopolitical Future’s George Friedman recently spoke with Jonathan Roth about the growing divide between the government of Poland and the leadership of the EU. Dr. Friedman notes:

“The EU has a view of what liberal democracy is, not officially, not written down, but deep in its culture and they expect all members of the European Union to abide by that. The Hungarians, and the Poles in particular, have exercised a somewhat different view and that view revolves around this principal: the fundamental principal of liberal democracy is and ought to be national self determination. If you don’t have that, no other right is meaningful. Their view is that their governments have been elected by very large majorities, and therefore they are going to make the decisions about the future of their country…The EU has a very different view, which is that national identity is something that is a problem, that if you have too strong a national identity then you’re excluding others inside the EU and outside the EU, and this is a real showdown because the Poles are not going to give on this issue and the European Union really can’t capitulate on this issue because its core to both of them and so we’re in a showdown. So if the Poles get away with it, so to speak, and the Hungarians get away with it as well, and the British are leaving the EU, somewhat on the same issue because Brexit was not about economics, it was about national self determination for the British and to a great extent the migration issue as well, they can’t get away from this. The EU is going to get whittled away and that’s what we are really seeing”

There is much more to the interview so enjoy it below: