Following the 2024 US presidential elections, it’s time to take stock of the state of democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights in the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). The EU’s leadership now needs to look inward and reflect over whether some of the emerging issues stateside are being appropriately handled on our own soil.
This CEPS Explainer focuses on policy areas in the AFSJ where the EU should address significant systemic shortcomings and make effective improvements. Overall, the topics assessed here are all based on the Treaties’ aim to not only deliver on the EU’s principles of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights but also to remedy structural shortcomings in the EU’s AFSJ policy framework and make use of the tools available to effectively protect and independently enforce those principles.
What this Explainer offers to the EU is a mirror – to grapple with all the similarities between its policies and those criticised in the EU, which have contributed to a growing decline and the backsliding of the democratic rule of law and fundamental rights. It’s high time for the EU to look inward. It needs to step up the fight against the growing sense of leniency in effectively countering EU Treaty principles violations and illiberal and far-right assaults on the very foundations of European integration from within.
About the authors:
Sergio Carrera is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Justice and Home Affairs unit at CEPS.
Julia Pocze is a Research Assistant in the Justice and Home Affairs Unit at CEPS.