EU needs new treaty to enforce its rules – Austria’s Kurz

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the European Union needs a new treaty that would ensure punishment for countries that break its rules.

The EU’s Lisbon Treaty, which took effect in 2009, couldn’t counter the crises of recent years properly “because it was conceived in the time before the crises,” the chancellor wrote in an op-ed Friday for Germany’s daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The conservative Kurz, who has led Austria in a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party since late 2017, advocates a hard line on budget discipline and on migration, AP said.

A new EU treaty must contain clear rules and “sanctions that really kick in” on matters such as violating the EU’s budget rules, failing to register migrants or flouting rule-of-law requirements, according to Kurz.