BLOG: Overcoming naivety: the protection of the rule of law in a post-pandemic Union

As Ursula Von der Leyen underlined in her State of the Union address last September, the pandemic “showed us just how fragile our community of values really is”.¹ Indeed, the COVID- 19 crisis has seen a rise in illiberal practices and disrespect of the rule of law, which has been a growing trend for several years now. As a result, it has been contended that the EU is a Union of values de jure but not de facto, insofar as the European treaties do assert the existence of European values, but in practice several EU Member States, notably Poland and Hungary,² disregard them.

Read the full article using the PDF button.