The European Commission’s next annual report on the Rule of law in the EU27, due in July, will have to produce more results “and demonstrate its effects”, as dialogue with a number of Member States is not enough, said the Spanish MEP Domènec Ruiz Devesa (S&D), on Monday 12 April, in the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties.
Author of an own-initiative report on the first exercise of this kind published by the European Commission on 30 September, the MEP stated that the Commission should accompany its work with “clear recommendations” and summarise the most serious elements observed in the Member States, the risk of a global report being to “dilute” the problems and minimise certain abuses.
“Nothing will seem important otherwise, because all Member States will have a small problem”, he explained.
“There is a need for a more integrated analysis” and to “better see the shortcomings”. The MEP would like to see more emphasis on the systemic effect of certain reforms. The “growing resistance” of some Member States “to comply with CJEU rulings” also needs to be addressed, which is “a real problem”. The annual report could also be much more concrete on corruption, said the MEP.
Greens/EFA MEP Tineke Strik (Netherlands) called for the report to go into more detail on the effects of the deterioration of the Rule of law on civil society.
In his draft report, the Spaniard also regrets “the fact that the 2020 report fails to encompass fully the Article 2 TEU values of democracy and fundamental rights, which are immediately affected when countries start backsliding on the Rule of law”.
He also encourages the Commission to consider including within the scope of future reports the application of all rights guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
He reiterates, as well, the “insistence on the need for a single monitoring mechanism on democracy, the Rule of law and fundamental rights, as proposed by Parliament, to cover the full scope of Article 2 TEU values”.
The Commission is also invited “to make clear in its annual Rule of Law Reports that not all Rule of law shortcomings and violations are of the same nature and/or intensity and that when the values listed in Article 2 of the TEU are violated gravely, permanently and systematically, Member States cease being democracies”.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/3e0DEuo (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)