The European Affairs Ministers of the EU-27 held an exchange of views, as scheduled, on 17 November on the situation of the Rule of law in five Member States: Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Denmark.
The discussion lasted a total of three hours for these five countries which, like the other 22, were scrutinised in the European Commission’s first annual report on 30 September (see EUROPE 12571/5) presented by the Commission.
According to German State Secretary Michael Roth, it will ultimately introduce “a new dialogue to understand what is at the heart of the EU” and its values, not “just the market”, he said at the end of the EU Council meeting.
These thematic discussions help to identify “difficulties and improvements” to be made. The report examined the anti-corruption framework, freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary and the overall balance of power.
The Secretary of State cited only the example of Bulgaria at the press conference, a country for which the Commission had predominantly repeated the concerns raised in its report on the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism.
Mr Roth explained that the country had pledged on Tuesday to address the shortcomings identified, including those relating to the “influence of politics on judges and prosecutors”.
As this discussion took place in camera, little had filtered out by the time we went to press. According to one source, these five Member States all defended the contentious issues before them and answered other questions from their colleagues.
Hungary and Poland would also have used this discussion to denounce the legal basis of this annual report and to denounce the double standards between Member States. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)