Nick Sitter (School of Public Policy) and Elisabeth Bakke (University of Oslo) publish an article in the Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of European Union Politics on-line version, on Democratic Backsliding in the European Union. It argues that democratic backsliding in EU member states are not only a policy challenge for the EU, but a potential existential crisis because it undermined the credibility of its rule-of-law-based system.
The Hungarian and Polish populist right’s “illiberal” projects involve centralization of power in the hands of the executive and the party, and limiting the independence of the judiciary, the media and civil society. If the EU does too little to deal with this problem, it risks undermining its own system from within. But if the EU acts too decisively, there is a danger that it might push one or more Central European states out of the union, or at least into second-class membership.
So far, the EU’s has erred on the side of caution, and done very little to contain democratic backsliding. If anything, EU funding has helped finance the slide away from democracy in Poland and Hungary. In the contest of the ongoing Article 7 proceedings against Hungary and Poland (about suspending aspects of their EU membership) and current debates about linking EU finance to the rule of law, the question is whether the EU member states can muster the political will to address the EU’s democratic backsliding crisis.
The paper draws on research carried out for the EU-funded TransCrisis project.
Video link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhaCD0C9SPA
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