Rule of law declining across EU, report warns

Liberties report: EU rule of law declines amid political meddling, restricted protests, and weakened legal balances.

IN SHORT

A report from the Civil Liberties Network shows that the rule of law is falling in EU countries.

• The Liberties civil liberties network says that the rule of law is getting worse across the EU because political and legal checks and balances are not working as well as they should.
• The study, which was made with the help of 37 rights groups from 19 countries, shows that restrictions on the right to protest have become much stricter.
• In France, Germany, and Belgium, three older democracies where major parties still hold power, threats to the rule of law still happen from time to time.
• The rule of law is at risk of getting worse in long-standing countries where far-right parties are in power, like Italy and Sweden.
  The rule of law can quickly improve or worsen in EU countries that were just re-established, like Slovakia, Slovenia, and Poland.
  The head of the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, Balázs Dénes, says that the EU needs to move faster to stop clear rule-of-law slips.
• As the report shows, the EU needs to move quickly and firmly to stop countries from going back to the rule of law. The study also talks about how hard it is to bring back the rule of law without breaking the laws that are meant to support it. The study also talks about how peaceful protests are limited. For example, in Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, and Sweden, protests are now illegal. Some people don’t care about the rights of refugees and migrants, and the study says that the justice system has become too political.
• In Greece, Italy, and Slovakia, politicians publicly disagree with court decisions or give orders in cases that are still going on. At the same time, the government’s refusal to follow court orders in asylum and border protection cases hit all-time highs.

A major civil liberties network says that the rule of law is getting weaker across the EU because governments are continuing to weaken democracy and legal checks and balances. In its annual study, Berlin-based Liberties said that challenges to the rule of law were still rare in France, Germany, and Belgium, which are all older democracies with major parties in power. But in countries like Italy and Sweden, which have been democracies for a long time and have far-right parties in power or a lot of power, the rule of law could start to break down everywhere. Slovakia, Slovenia, and Poland are EU democracies that were just re-established. The rule of law “can swing quickly—either toward recovery or decline.”

The head of the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, Balázs Dénes, said that the EU needed to move faster to stop clear rule-of-law backsliding. The European Commission used the Civil Liberties Union for Europe’s 600-page report in its rule-of-law monitoring. He said that the commission and the EU as a whole have a lot of strong tools but are afraid to use them quickly and firmly. Some things could and should be done, like infringement actions or conditional freezing of EU funds, but Brussels was “like a bystander.” They don’t understand that some countries are destroying checks and balances on purpose.

Dénes said that the example of Hungary, where rule-of-law problems have become widespread and have not been fixed despite changes to the law, showed “just how badly things can turn.” The changes to pensions in France last year were “enacted in a manifestly undemocratic legislative process” because the government used powerful constitutional powers to make them happen. Far-right parties run and support the governments of Italy and Sweden, respectively. Liberties’ partners saw a decline in the rule of law in areas such as human rights, media freedom and pluralism, the justice system, and public space.

“Systematically dismantling democratic structures” was what Robert Fico, the populist prime minister of Slovakia, was doing. In Slovenia, a pro-democracy government was trying to undo the long-term efforts of its populist predecessor to weaken democratic norms. Poland’s new government, which was attempting to restore liberal democracy after eight years of populist state capture, raised the issue of restoring the rule of law without violating the very legal foundations one seeks to revive.