The EU's Sense of the Rule of Law and the Issue of its Oversight

Abstract

The chapter addresses the much debated role of the European Union in defending its Treaty art. 2 values even inside the Member states’ borders. The nature of the EU as a two-level systems is admittedly the first reason for a peculiar complexity of the issue. But some common places are discussed that might still foreclose an appropriate approach to the problem. To the forefront are brought questions, often overlooked in this context, concerning the meaning of the Rule of law that the EU upholds and practices, the possibility of a transitive notion of that normative ideal, its relation to democracy, both in the conceptual sense and in the EU contextual frame.

Keywords: Rule of law, European Union, Constitutional failures, EU Law, Rule of Law, Values, Article 2 TEU, Enforcement, Democracy, Hungary, Romania, Constitutionalism values, Multilevel orders