The Dark Relationship Between the Rule of Law and Liberalism. The New ECJ Decision on the Conditionality Regulation

• Roila Mavrouli ^[1]
  1. [1] CNRS (GREGHEC) - HEC Paris
• Localización: European papers: a journal on law and integration, ISSN-e 2499-8249, Vol. 7, Nº. 1, 2022, págs. 275-286
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen

  • The recent rule of law crisis is partly due to the inertia of the European institutions regarding the implementation of the mechanism within art. 7 TEU. This is despite the variety of actions that could be taken by the EU regarding maintaining high levels of respect for the rule of law within the EU. Hence it seems that the rule of law crisis has come to stay. The escalation in the rule of law crisis creates a dissonance regarding the way the European Union perceives the rule of law, and points to the ambiguity in terms of content and legal nature. This dissonance adds to the existing tension between the claims of an illiberal constitutional identity and the violation of the rule of law. Illiberalism refers to representative democracies which do not necessarily guarantee fundamental rights and/or the rule of law. The law crisis reached its peak when the introduction of the rule of law Conditionality Regulation was believed to be the solution. The rule of law Conditionality Regulation was subject to an action for annulment introduced by Hungary and Poland and was dismissed by the ECJ in its long-awaited rulings after the case C-156/21 ECLI:EU:C:2022:97 and case C-157/21 ECLI:EU:C:2022:98. Even if the ECJ made it clear that the Regulation is not a substitute nor a reinstatement of the art. 7 TEU procedure, we can only wait to see how the Regulation will be applied. The rule of law violations was linked directly to the allocation of EU budget, and this raises questions about the challenges at stake.