FRIDAY'S EU summit in Bratislava, the Slovak capital was supposed to be a calm affair that focused on rebuilding after the British voted to quit the Union but it looks as if it is going to be anything but calm. Luxembourg foreign minister signaled immigration as the major point on which the 27 EU leaders — the British will not be there — seem destined to clash and clash bitterly. Jean Asselborn has said that because of its deplorable response to the refugee crisis, Hungary should be suspended from membership of, or actually expelled from the EU. At a time when the EU urgently needs to rediscover consensus and unity, Asselborn's statement will be anything but welcome. Nevertheless, the deplorable response of Hungarian premier Viktor Orban to the flows of desperate refugees, simply has to be challenged. The Hungarian police have been ordered to recruit "border hunters" armed with pepper spray and pistols to join the ten thousand police and soldiers guarding the 175 kilometer razor wire-topped wall that now runs along the frontiers with Serbia and Croatia. Orban rejects EU plans to settle 160,000 refugees in eastern states. He has called a referendum for Oct. 2 in which he is campaigning for a vote to throw out the scheme. Given the control his government now exerts over the media and allegations of electoral fraud, it seems unlikely that this is a referendum he is going to lose. In reality, Brussels has no power to expel any member state. The best that can be done would be to freeze diplomatic relations with Budapest, in the same way that the EU handled Austria when the far-right Freedom Party joined the governing coalition. Moreover other EU leaders are panicking at the reemergence of far-right, Islamophobic and racist parties. France's National Front continues to prosper with its anti-migrant, anti-Muslim message and its leader Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French presidential election last year. This once unthinkable development is suddenly completely thinkable given that Republican voters could select the bombastic bigot Donald Trump as their candidate for the White House. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure from her Christian Democratic Union party bosses following the drubbing their candidates took earlier this month in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state elections, when the anti-migrant Alternatif fur Deutschland party beat the CDU into second place. There is a clear danger that the Bratislava summit could produce a covert endorsement of the rising tide of racist poison in Europe. Still shaken by the UK's decision to quit, EU leaders are looking for unity. Yet the issue of the civilized and generous treatment of refugees pioneered by Merkel is now a clear threat to that unity. In the past on economic and internal relations, the genius of the EU has been to have its leaders sit up arguing all night and then produce a compromise in the dawn, which has been achieved by fudging and skating over difficult issues. Unfortunately there is no compromise when it comes to dealing with the safety and welfare of hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees who have turned to the supposedly liberal and civilized EU to help them in their hour of need. This is a crucial moment for the EU leaders and the principles of freedom and tolerance they claim to treasure.
