The EU’s menacing rule of law power grab

Officially the European Union may be a union of sovereign states. But its Commission increasingly has the air of an imperial chancellery, or perhaps the headquarters of some vast conglomerate giving instructions to the directors of its far-flung subsidiaries. The Commission’s annual Rule of Law report, published last week, is a case in point. It is well worth reading if you want to understand the EU mindset.

Nominally a report to the European parliament and a number of central institutions, essentially it is a 30-page memo reminding the EU27 that the rule of law is part of the EU brand — and ordering member states to uphold it without any backsliding. Each country also gets its own report card: ‘good effort’ for Germany, for example, but ‘serious problems: must try much harder’ for Poland and Hungary.

For the EU the rule of law means four things: impartial courts, anti-corruption measures, media pluralism and freedom, and constitutional checks and balances.