Rule of Law Conditionality and Constitutional Democracy Crisis in Europe

Within the global crisis of constitutional democracy, the cases of democratic backsliding in EU member states are peculiar for their systemic impact on the EU integration project as a whole. The existent mechanisms deployed to deal with the crises in Poland and Hungary, including Art.7, have proved to be little effective. In light of these flaws, the Commission put forward in May 2018 a proposal for a Regulation that would allow for the suspension of EU funding in case of ‘generalised deficiencies’ in national rule of law systems. The proposal aims to introducing the tool of conditionality – already used by the EU in the financial assistance and structural funding systems – also within the rule of law field.