[FR] The budgetary stick to the rescue of the rule of law?

The rule of law, compliance with which is inherent to membership of the European Union, is of primary interest to the EU institutions, but also to citizens who value freedom of the press, independence of the judiciary and, more broadly, the democratic functioning of our countries.

How can the rule of law be enforced where it is not respected?

There are, of course, instruments within the EU that help to ensure respect for the rule of law: recommendations from the Commission, infringements identified by the Commission that may lead to referral to the Court of Justice, and political pressure from the Parliament. And, above all, recourse to Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union to sanction violations of the rule of law. However, the implementation of these instruments has so far proved largely ineffective, due in particular to the Council’s inability to sanction one or more of its members.

One of the new avenues being explored at European level is to use the budgetary threat, i.e. to suspend the granting of European funds to the countries concerned.
An innovative mechanism making the payment of Community funds conditional on respect for the rule of law was thus adopted on 16 December 2020 by the Council (by qualified majority) and by the Parliament.

The Hungarian and Polish governments then threatened to veto the €750 billion European recovery plan adopted in July 2020 if this mechanism were to be implemented.

After difficult negotiations, an agreement was finally reached at the European Council on 10 and 11 December, which lifted these vetoes.
We asked Professor of European Law Laurent Pech (Middlesex University) to analyse this compromise and make proposals on its implementation by the Commission and Parliament.

His critical analysis of the compromise is complemented by that of our researcher at the Jacques Delors Centre in Berlin (Hertie School), Thu Nguyen.

The compromise and these analyses were discussed at the European Parliament Policy Observatory of the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris, chaired by Pascal Lamy (rapporteur: Christine Verger). The contributions of its seven members, former or current Members of Parliament, represent a wide range of political sensibilities and experiences. They offer their analyses, sometimes shared, sometimes divergent, and suggest various actions to be taken at the legal, institutional, political and budgetary levels.

They are all the more topical given that on 25 March the European Parliament adopted a resolution supported by most political groups, stating that if the Commission “fails to comply with its obligations under this Regulation […] by 1 June 2021, Parliament will consider this to be a failure and will therefore take action against the Commission”.

This is therefore a political and legal battle between the EU institutions and the Member States over the most effective ways of enforcing the rule of law, which guarantees the democratic functioning of each of the 27 Member States and their union. Let us hope that our public opinion, duly informed, will give this issue the attention it deserves.