Monitoring and enforcement of the rule of law in the EU: rhetoric and reality

This article offers a comprehensive examination of the rationale underlying the rule of law framework adopted by the Commission in March 2014 before outlining its main features. It is argued that while the Commission’s ‘light-touch’ framework falls short of what is required to effectively address internal threats to EU values of a systemic nature, it remains preferable to the new mechanism adopted by the Council in December 2014 and which consists of holding an annual rule of law dialogue among all Member States within the Council. To make the Commission’s framework more workable and effective, which should in turn increase its ‘dissuasive potential’, a number of modest recommendations are also offered at a time where an increasing number of voices are asking the Commission to activate the first phase its new mechanism in relation to Hungary and more recently, Poland.

This article has been published in a revised form in European Constitutional Law Review, http://doi.org/10.1017/S1574019615000358. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. Copyright © The Authors 2015