A Thorny Path to the Spotlight The Rule of Law Component in EU External Policies and EU- Ukraine Relations (original) (raw)
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An Ambitious Failure: Conceptualising the EU Approach to Rule of Law Promotion (in Ukraine)
Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, 2014
This article conceptualises the EU approach to rule of law promotion outside of accession, taking Ukraine as a case study. Empirical evidence, collected through document analysis, expert interviews and participant observation, reveals that the rule of law as a legal and political category in EU external relations has little to do with the essentialist scholarly definitions of the concept. Instead, it constitutes an abstract ideal which frames bilateral cooperation at the political level and a banner under which the parties realise a variety of activities at the practical level. This EU approach is deliberate and meant to allow for defining the rule of law in harmony with the parties' integration ambitions, priorities and domestic institutional contexts. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings' implications for future policy and research.
This paper explores the nexus between efforts of the European Union in promotion of the rule of law in Ukraine and the domestic factors limiting the successful introduction and consolidation of this democratic norm. By moving beyond legalistic understanding of the rule of law and highlighting the political and cultural nature of reform, it examines the domestic root causes and outlines the power structures and existing norms as understudied, yet crucial building stones for the successful implementation of the rule of law. Firstly, it argues that incomplete consolidation of democratic institutions resulting in predominance of power vertical and alternative power structures of oligarchic clans undermine the authority of the rule of law. Secondly, it highlights the role of normative friction between the rule of law and domestic normative environment in Ukraine, influenced by the Soviet legacy and neo-patrimonial values. This has broad implications not only for understanding the limits of progress in the rule of law in Ukraine, but also of the efforts of external actors, such as the EU, to advance the rule-of law reform in this region. Keywords: Rule of law; Ukraine; power structures; norms; European Union
2016
The dissolution of the Soviet Union changed the political landscape in Europe and transformed the membership and role of Europe's two major organisations—the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe (CoE). The nature of these organisations' relationships with post-Soviet states and with each other received considerable scholarly interest in the 1990s and early 2000s. Originally founded as alternatives, the EU and the CoE "have run in parallel for most of the time, each within its very own field of activity" (Kolb, 2010, p. 2). Following the decades of transformation, however, the two found themselves pursuing similar tasks in similar fields: promoting the triptych of European values –democracy, human rights and the rule of law—in post-Soviet states. Scholars examined transforming networks of "interlocking" European organisations and concluded that there are increasing overlaps of their memberships and competences, with elements of both cooperation an...
The Rule of Law and the European Union
The idea and ideal of the rule of law has ancient roots in Babylonian, Hebraic, Hellenic, Roman, and in some respects Chinese political thought. 1 Each tradition has made indelible contributions to the emergence of modern European conceptions of the rule of law and, ineluctably, to those found in the contemporary European Union (EU). 2 Fascinating and important as the history of their ideas undoubtedly is, this chapter does not trace the evolution of the rule of law within those millennia-old traditions, nor does it cover the distinct rule of law conceptions and cultures that developed in the national systems of each EU member state. A final caveat: this chapter addresses notion of the rule of law as it emerged and developed within the EU governance system per se, but does not pretend to account for other pan-European conceptions and uses (notably the ones found in the context of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its interpretation by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the Council of Europe (CoE) more broadly, or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) except as they significantly shaped that of the EU itself. 3 This chapter traces the origins and evolution of the concept of the rule of law within the EC/EU governance system (Section I). It then delineates the four main areas in which the rule of law forms a central pillar of EC/EU identity and activity (Section II). Finally, the chapter provides a cross-cutting, critical review of the EU-rule of law nexus, identifying key debates where the concept of the rule of law plays a substantial role in contemporary EU studies, as well as where the EU governance system can be said to be lacking in terms of its adherence to the salient constitutive features of the rule of law (Section III). Throughout, the chapter places emphasis on the identification of key concepts, areas of activity, and debates so as to facilitate future research into the EU-rule of law nexus.
The Rule of Law as a Pivotal Concept of the EU’s Politico-Legal Order
Justinianus Primus Law Review (2020) Volume XI Issue 1 (indexed in EBSCO and HeinOnline)
Abstract: In recent years, EU Member States like Poland, Hungary, Romania and Malta have experienced various kinds of rule of law backsliding processes that have threatened to gradually erode these countries’ democratic institutions established under the rule of law. The persistence of rule of law eroding trends has become a compelling post-accession reality for these Member States (which joined the EU in 2004 and 2007), arguably undermining and being in open breach of the EU’s fundamental values - most pressingly and most acutely, the rule of law. While this paper does not aim to pinpoint the causes and factors that have led to the foregoing regressive trends, its goal is rather to look in a more conceptual manner at the rule of law as an overarching principle underpinning the EU’s legal and political order. The paper will also examine the mechanisms the European Union has at its disposal in confronting the value erosion trends and inspect to what degree these mechanisms can be considered effective in tackling the rule of law backsliding processes. http://lawreview.pf.ukim.edu.mk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1.-Ilina-Cenevska.pdf
RECONNECT WP 8, Deliverable 2, 2020
The EU has been facing the Rule of Law crisis for almost a decade now. Undermining the separation of powers directly affects the Rule of Law in a given state, but at the same time it affects the EU integration as well, since the Rule of Law is one of its fundamental values. The paper builds on previous RECONNECT research, such as that on the meaning of the Rule of Law (e.g. Deliverable 7.1 ‘Unity and Diversity in National Understandings of the Rule of Law in the EU’ and Deliverable 7.2 ‘Meaning and Scope of the EU Rule of Law’), the analyses carried out in the RECONNECT working paper on ‘Global Democracy & Rule of Law Conditions and Trajectories’ (Deliverable 3.1) and the RECONNECT Policy Brief on Strengthening the Rule of Law from Within the EU. The paper in Chapter 1 starts with the overview of worldwide trends regarding the Rule of Law situation based on various indices. In Chapter 2 the mechanisms and processes are outlined whereby populist politicians with authoritarian leanings build ‘elected autocracies’. Claims and arguments used by would-be autocrats are also listed, which justify dismantlement of checks and balances. This part serves as a basis and prepares the ground for the analysis in the rest of this paper. In Chapter 3, the key Rule of Law areas that had been damaged are analysed. It provides a comparative outlook of the health of the Rule of Law in Hungary and Poland, the two countries undergoing Article 7(1) TEU proceedings. Chapter 4 offers a so-called ‘false positive’ by discussing the case of Catalan independentism and demands that the EU intervenes. In the final voluminous Chapter 5 existing and proposed EU tools are discussed to enforce the Rule of Law in the Member States and to fight the backsliding). Authors: Petra Bárd, Barbara Grabowska-Moroz, Julinda Beqiraj, Carlos Closa, Joelle Grogan, Gisela Hernández, Viktor Zoltán Kazai, Dimitry Kochenov, Tomasz Koncewicz, Marcin Michalak, Lucy Moxham, Laurent Pech
Variation in EU External Policies as a Virtue: EU Rule of Law Promotion in the Neighbourhood
JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2014
The scholarship on European Union external relations ties good performance to enhanced coherence across EU policies, often understood as uniformity, and interprets any sign of variation as incoherence and double standards. This article challenges the virtuousness of such uniformity in the case of EU rule of law promotion in the neighbourhood and examines the parameters of the possible and the necessary. The findings reveal that variation in EU rule of law conceptions is inherent to the EU approach and inevitable due to the nature of the rule of law concept and the studied political context. Moreover, this variation in itself does not entail incoherence of EU rule of law promotion, as a shared understanding of the core meaning of the rule of law frames EU efforts across cases, and is even desirable for effective rule of law promotion, under law and development theory and practice.
Rule of Law in European Union External Action: Guiding Principles, Practices and Lessons Learned
Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), 2014
This paper examines the EU’s approach to supporting rule of law and good governance reforms in non-member countries by analysing the principles guiding its action, the implementation of such efforts and the lessons learned from its experience. It first situates European fundamental values in its mandates to demonstrate how values are embedded in the European project internally and externally. It then analyses the translation of these values into strategies for action not only for the citizen but also with the citizen in the context of human security (engaging civil society in the reform process).iii Last but not least, the report examines the tools available to the Union to put these strategies into practice and draws lessons from the EU’s long and diverse experience. It argues that the EU has consistently aimed to put rule of law concerns at the centre of its actions when supporting good governance abroad, and has made much progress in refining its approach. In a world characterized by shifting social, political and economic paradigms, however, the Union must still overcome important challenges in order for its support of the rule of law to be effective.
RECONNECT Working Paper No.1, 2018
The European Union and the Member States seem to be doing as little as they can against rule of law backsliding in some of the EU's constituent parts. Each of the EU institutions came up with their own plan on what to do, inventing more and more new soft law of questionable quality. All that is being done by the institutions seems to reveal one and only one point: there is a total disagreement among all the actors involved as to how to sort out the current impasse. This inaction helps the powers of the backsliding Member States to consolidate their assault on EU's values even further. The core question is how to ensure that the EU's own rule of law be upheld. Authors argue that the most mature answer to the problems should necessarily involve not only the reform of the enforcement mechanisms, but the reform of the Union as such, as supranational law should be made more aware of the values it is obliged by the Treaties to respect and aspire to protect both at the national and also at the supranational levels. EU law should embrace the rule of law as an institutional ideal, which implies, inter alia, eventual substantive limitations on the acquis of the Union, as well as taking EU values to heart in the context of the day-to-day functioning of the Union, elevating them above the instrumentalism marking them today.
The EU's role in policing the rule of law: reflections on recent Polish experience
Although Brexit has understandably been the primary focus of much recent EU-related discussion, it is not the only threat to the EU's long-term stability. The growing impact of populism has already influenced the Brexit referendum result and an anti-liberal resurgence within the EU. Events in Poland have led to criticism of the EU's apparent impotence in counteracting governments determined to implement an anti-liberal, national-populist legislative agenda that threatens the rule of law. This article offers a critical analysis of the mechanism contained in Article 7 TEU and the tools created by the European Commission within its New Framework, viewed through the prism of escalating violations of the rule of law in Poland, with particular focus on the destabilisation of the Constitutional Tribunal. It analyses whether such criticisms are justified and, if so, whether a more robust framework for addressing anti-liberal populism is required. We compare the EU's evolution into an organisation that protects individual human rights with its fledgling evolution into an organisation that seeks to police the rule of law. We argue that, in contrast to its successful human rights evolution, the EU's current efforts towards enforcing the rule of law give little cause for optimism.