Enforcing compliance of the Rule of Law by the Member States of the EU: Emphasising the EU’s Failure?

Abstract

The EU is founded on the rule of law enshrined in Article 2 TEU. Nevertheless, recent developments within certain Member States demonstrate that not all Member States are able to keep up with the high standards of the rule of law during their membership. The EU has several tools at its disposal to act against non-compliant Member States, such as the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism for Romania and Bulgaria, the nuclear option of Article 7 TEU, and the original infringement procedure under Article 258 TFEU. The European Commission has established a new EU Rule of Law Framework in 2014, which is applied for the first time for Poland. This suggest that the EU is not able to enforce the compliance of the rule of law effectively by using its original legal framework. The question, thus, raises whether the new mechanism will enable the EU to enforce effectively the compliance of the rule of law by the Member States. Based on an extensive assessment of the original legal framework and the EU Rule of Law Framework, the state of play of the EU to enforce the compliance of the rule of law will be analysed.