{"id":861937,"date":"2026-03-31T05:50:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/861937\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:50:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:50:19","slug":"as-the-eu-loses-interest-the-rule-of-law-unravels-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/861937\/","title":{"rendered":"As the EU loses interest, the rule-of-law unravels \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

EUobserver voice<\/strong>\u00a0is a daily opinion piece by EUobserver staff writers, published every weekday morning<\/p>\n

Corruption,\u00a0judicial\u00a0bias\u00a0and threats to media freedom\u00a0\u2014 plenty of it exists across the EU, despite the institutions in Brussels making their absence a prerequisite for joining the bloc.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not only are they present, but the EU Commission\u2019s attempts to uphold the rule of law are \u201cineffective\u201d\u00a0and repetitive,\u00a0says\u00a0the Civil Liberties Union of Europe (Liberties)\u00a0in a report published on Monday (30 March).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their report<\/a>, which extends to more than 840 pages, points to \u201cdeliberate erosion of the rule of law\u201d in Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia. <\/p>\n

It adds that\u00a0even historically-strong democracies, such as Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, and Sweden, are experiencing \u201cregression\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, Liberties\u00a0identifies\u00a0what\u00a0it\u00a0describes as\u00a0\u2018dismantlers\u2019 (governments that consistently and intentionally weaken the rule of law)\u00a0and\u00a0\u2018sliders\u2019,\u00a0where democratic standards decline in certain areas without being part of a clear political strategy.<\/p>\n

Leaving aside the\u00a0slightly clumsy phraseology, a growing group of EU states are clamping down on\u00a0basic rights such as\u00a0peaceful protest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the countries named\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0come as a surprise to Brussels-watchers.\u00a0Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s\u00a0Hungary\u00a0\u201cremains in a category of its own, continuing to pursue ever more regressive laws and policies without any sign of change,\u201d according to Liberties \u2014 criticism that will\u00a0probably be\u00a0received as a badge of\u00a0honour\u00a0by the Fidesz government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s status as a major offender is new, however.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the real value of the report should\u00a0be in\u00a0encouraging the EU\u00a0to take its own commitments to the rule of law seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the past, the commission has\u00a0placed\u00a0great importance\u00a0on its annual Rule of Law report\u00a0and in launching infringement proceedings against Hungary and Poland under the so-called Article 7 process.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0even the commission\u00a0seems to have\u00a0lost interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Liberties\u00a0finds that 93 percent\u00a0of the\u00a0recommendations issued\u00a0by the commission\u00a0in 2025\u00a0were simply copied and pasted\u00a0from the previous year\u2019s report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Overall,\u00a0the number of new recommendations was cut in half compared to 2024. Out of 100 recommendations assessed by Liberties, 61 show no progress and a further 13 are backsliding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The governments\u00a0who have been named-and-shamed\u00a0may retort that the civil society groups on whose evidence this report is based have, themselves, received funding from the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That is true for many of\u00a0them,\u00a0but it\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0invalidate the research.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In truth, the EU \u2014 as with its Stability and Growth Pact, which governs debts and deficits \u2014 has been very reluctant to impose sanctions\u00a0for rule of law breaches.<\/p>\n

Billions of euros from the Covid-19 recovery fund were withheld from Hungary, but the Article 7 procedures have simply run into government vetoes and been quietly abandoned. <\/p>\n

But the\u00a0perception is\u00a0that the EU does not hold member states to the rules that they signed up to, putting\u00a0the bloc in contempt.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EUobserver voice\u00a0is a daily opinion piece by EUobserver staff writers, published every weekday morning Corruption,\u00a0judicial\u00a0bias\u00a0and threats to media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,220440,225611,245341,245339,220438,225609,245340,220439,225610],"class_list":{"0":"post-861937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-typedefinedterm","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-identifier29","13":"tag-identifier4403","14":"tag-identifier4599","15":"tag-nameeuobserver-voice","16":"tag-namerule-of-law","17":"tag-namesociety","18":"tag-termcodeeuobserver-voice","19":"tag-termcoderule-of-law","20":"tag-termcodesociety"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116322227357775822","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}