The European Union’s Democratic Turn

By Matteo Bonelli

This article is a shortened version of the eponymous re:constitution Working Paper, which was originally published the Forum Transregionale Studien in 2024 and can be read here.

Introduction

The “constitutional backsliding” crisis in the European Union (EU) started almost fifteen years ago.[1] Since then, EU institutions have sought to address and reverse backsliding processes in the Member States with a variety of tools, initiatives and strategies. As is well known, the two most remarkable cases of constitutional backsliding have been those of Hungary, under Viktor Orban’s governments, and of Poland, at least until the parliamentary elections of autumn 2023, won by a coalition of political forces committed to scale back the controversial reforms of the Law and Justice governments that ruled between 2015 and 2023.[2]

For at least the first half of these fifteen years, the events in Hungary and Poland, and at times also in other EU Member States,[3] were most often described as a “rule of law crisis”, or as cases of “rule of law backsliding.” This conceptualisation of the crisis was prevalent both in the academic[4] and the institutional debate.[5] In line with that approach, EU institutions reacted to the crisis with the adoption of several instruments that strived to offer better protection to the rule of law, one of the Union’s founding values of Article 2 Treaty on EU (TEU). Already in 2015, the Commission adopted the “Rule of Law Framework”, a dialogical framework to be activated in case of systemic threats to the rule of law; a few years later, it introduced the “Rule of Law Reports”,[6] through which it regularly monitors rule of law performances in all 27 Member States. To strengthen monitoring efforts, the Council also developed a (timid) rule of law peer-review scheme.[7]

In 2020, the European Parliament (EP) and the Council then adopted the so-called “Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation”,[8] which allows EU institutions to suspend EU funds when a Member State breaches certain rule of law standards, and that breach affects the sound financial management of the Union budget or the protection of the financial interests of the Union in a sufficiently direct way. Furthermore, in the Repubblika case,[9] the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) developed the principle of “non-regression” on rule of law standards after accession. These efforts have led to the creation of a rather comprehensive “rule of law toolbox” that is now in the hands of the EU institutions.[10]

The initial focus and emphasis on the rule of law in EU action was, at least to an extent, logical. Both in Hungary and in Poland, ruling majorities brought severe attacks to core rule of law principles, and in particular to the independence of the judiciary. They reformed systems of judicial appointments, disciplinary proceedings, tried to curb the national courts’ possibilities to rely on EU and European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) standards and case law domestically, and increased political control over national councils of the judiciary. Widespread corruption has also been a strong concern in Hungary,[11] but also in other older and newer Member States.[12] Furthermore, from the point of view of the legitimacy of EU intervention, the Union institutions could rely on the fairly robust rule of law credentials of the EU, arguably stronger than the democratic ones, given the rather popular critique of the Union’s democratic deficit.

Nonetheless, already in the early stages of the fight against constitutional backsliding, some observers stressed that the EU should not only focus on the rule of law, but needed to address challenges to all Article 2 TEU values, including the value of the democracy, if it wanted to offer adequate answers to the Hungarian and Polish crises.[13] Yet, in the first years, the focus of EU institutions remained essentially on the value of the rule of law.

The approach started to shift when the first von der Leyen Commission took office in 2019. Building on earlier initiatives under the Juncker presidency,[14] the Commission identified “A new push for European democracy” as one of six priorities in the political guidelines for the 2019–2024 mandate.[15] Among other measures,[16] in order to concretize that “push”, the Commission presented in the years that followed two packages of legislative and policy initiatives on democracy: the “European Democracy Action Plan”[17] (EDAP) and the “Defence of Democracy” package (DOD).[18] The second von der Leyen Commission continued the push with the publication of the European Democracy Shield in November 2025.

Next to these law-making initiatives, the Commission also made democracy more central in its enforcement strategy. In particular, it has initiated infringement actions that explicitly strived to protect democracy in the Member States relying on Article 2 TEU, which proclaims democracy as one of the EU’s founding values, as well as to Article 10 TEU, which sets out the dual (national and European) channel of democratic legitimacy in the EU.[19] Moreover, the new Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme created for the 2021–2027 Multiannual Financial Framework has made EU funding available for democratic initiatives in the Member States.[20]

This working paper (WP) argues that we are witnessing a “democratic turn” in EU initiatives to protect and promote EU values. This democratic turn complements, but does not replace, the initiatives developed in the last decade to strengthen the rule of law in the EU and the Member States, as well as the Union’s fundamental rights policy that has even earlier roots. The WP analyzes the main pillars of the turn and identifies its main drivers: next to the need to provide better answers to constitutional backsliding processes, other European and global challenges have pushed the EU institutions to bring forward new democratic initiatives. The WP then offers an initial analysis of the constitutional impact of the turn and reflects on some of the core challenges that EU institutions are facing in operationalising the value of democracy.

After a brief introduction to democracy as an EU value in section 1, sections 2 and 3 deal respectively with Commission’s enforcement actions based on democratic values and principles, and then with EU legislative initiatives on democracy. Section 4 explores then the drivers of the Union’s democratic turn. Section 5 reflects on the impact of the democratic turn, and section 6 reflects on the open challenges.

1. Democracy as an EU Value

The framing of the reaction to backsliding in rule of law terms was certainly not driven by the idea that the EU Treaties downplay the role of democracy, or that democracy does not feature as prominently as the rule of law in the EU constitutional system. On the contrary, democracy and the rule of law go hand in hand in the Treaties’ framework. Both, together with human rights, find recognition in Article 2 TEU as the core constitutional values on which the EU is founded, and that are common to the Member States. Similarly, democracy and the rule of law are mentioned in Article 21 TEU as two of the values that the EU strives to promote in its external action, and similar lists containing references to both values, as well as once again to human rights, can be found in the preambles of the TEU and of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Next to the rule of law and human rights, democracy is then a key accession condition for candidate countries.[21] The core Treaty instrument to protect EU values in the Member States – Article 7 TEU – can then in principle be used to sanction both democratic and rule of law breaches, as well as human rights’ violations. The overall status of democracy in the Treaties is therefore certainly not inferior to that of the rule of law: both have equal standing as constitutional foundations of the EU and its Member States, and together with fundamental rights they can be seen as forming the “holy trinity” of European constitutionalism.[22]

Next to these broad proclamations on the relevance of democracy in the EU constitutional framework, the TEU also includes in its Title II a set of “Provisions on Democratic Principles”. The crucial one is Article 10 TEU, which affirms that the EU institutions function on the basis of the principle of “representative democracy” (paragraph 1),[23] and then, in paragraph 2, sets out the dual channel of democratic representation in the EU: citizens are “directly” represented in the EP, and then indirectly represented in the European Council and Council by their national governments, “themselves democratically accountable either to their national Parliaments, or to their citizens”. Article 10(3) TEU recognizes the citizens’ right to participate in the democratic life of the Union and the next paragraph speaks of the role of political parties in the EU democratic systems. Other provisions of Title II regulateinter alia the European Citizens’ Initiative (article 11 TEU) and the role of national parliaments in the EU (article 12 TEU). Furthermore, the Charter of Fundamental Rights offers protection to the right to vote in local and European elections,[24] but also to other key democratic rights such as freedom of expression, or freedom of association.

Whereas the key status and relevance of democracy in the Treaties is therefore unquestionable, once we zoom in further, more difficult questions emerge. Identifying precise obligations and standards flowing from the value of democracy is not an easy task, given both the very wide diversity between Member States, which conceptualize and concretize democracy in a variety of ways, and the limited EU acquis in the area. There is no document comparable to the Charter of Fundamental Rights that clarifies the meaning of democracy in the EU,[25] and while the rule of law has been defined more precisely in recent times with the Rule of Law Framework and Reports, but also in the Conditionality Regulation,[26] similar lists of democratic principles are not available.[27] Even during different rounds of enlargement, EU institutions never offered a conclusive definition of democracy as a membership condition, with the Commission largely monitoring ad hoc democratic issues in accession candidates.[28] Furthermore, the case law of the Court of Justice on the value of democracy has traditionally been rather limited and has mostly concerned the prerogatives of the EP,[29] although, as discussed in section 2 of the WP, there have been significant developments on that front. Lastly but crucially, the Treaties do not offer explicit legal bases that allow the EU to take action to harmonize national democratic processes or set out common democratic standards. It is therefore hard to disagree with Nemitz and Ehm when they claim that in the “triangle” of Article 2 TEU values, democracy has been “the weakest link” and that it needs more work.[30]

More structurally, the democratic debate in the EU has mostly focused on a single, although fundamental, issue: the (alleged) democratic deficit of the EU, and the need to tackle it through institutional reforms as well as with a broad commitment to openness and transparency.[31] Democratic conditions in the Member States were never the main point of attention and concern, at least until the start of constitutional backsliding processes. But even then, as noted earlier, EU institutions initially concentrated mostly on the protection of the rule of law. The Union’s own democratic deficits might have been one of the very reasons why the Commission and other EU players preferred mostly to frame the discussion in rule of law terms.[32]

Yet things have started to change especially since the start of the mandate of the first von der Leyen Commission. Even in the absence of any fundamental institutional reform that granted the EU and its institutions a stronger mandate to oversee democratic conditions in the Member States, or the introduction of new legal bases in the Treaties, a new emphasis on the value of democracy is evident in the institutional initiatives that have developed since then. Further reflections on these initiatives can be found in the full paper.

---

I am grateful to Manuel Müller for helpful comments on the first draft to the WP, and to Elda Brogi, Martina Coli, Eleonora Di Franco, Cristina Fasone, Franca Feisel, Matteo Monti and Nora Vissers for many great discussions on these topics.

---

Notes

[1] That is, if we take as a starting point Viktor Orban’s return to power in Hungary after the April 2010 elections.

[2] On the challenge to restore democracy and the rule of law in the Member States, see for example the contributions to Michał Bobek et al. (eds), Transitions 2.0 – Re-establishing Constitutional Democracy in EU Member States, Nomos, 2023.

[3] See e.g. the discussions on Romania in Armin von Bogdandy and Pál Sonnevend (eds.), Constitutional Crisis in the European Constitutional Area – Theory, Law and Politics in Hungary and Romania, Hart Publishing, 2015; or more recently Ondrei Kadlec and David Kosař, “Romanian version of the rule of law crisis comes to the ECJ: The AFJR case is not just about the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism”, Common Market Law Review 59/6, 2022, 1823–1852.

[4] Among many: Carlos Closa and Dimitry Kochenov (eds.), Reinforcing Rule of Law Oversight in the European Union, Cambridge University Press, 2016; Matthias Schmidt and Piotr Bogdanowicz, ‘The Infringement Procedure in the Rule of Law Crisis: How to Make Effective Use of Article 258 TFEU’, Common Market Law Review 55/4, 2018, 1061–1100.

[5] See among many: Remarks by First Vice-President Frans Timmermans on further strengthening of the rule of law in the EU, Brussels, 3 April 2019, Doc. SPEECH/19/1972.

[6] Note that the Rule of Law Report adopts a broad conception of the rule of law, which also incorporates for example media freedom.

[7] The so-called Rule of Law Dialogue: for a discussion, see Thomas Conzelmann, “Peer Reviewing the Rule of Law? A New Mechanism to Safeguard EU Values”, European Papers 7/2, 2022, 671–695.

[8] The final title of the Regulation – Regulation 2020/2092 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2020 on a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget – does not however make explicit reference to the concept of the rule of law.

[9] CJEU, C-896/19 Repubblika EU:C:2021:311.

[10] The expression has been adopted also by the Commission: see e.g. <https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/0202c616-e7e6-4378-9961-512c56d246c5_en?filename=rule_of_law_mechanism_factsheet_en.pdf>. For a recent analysis of the toolbox: Cristina Fasone, Adriano Dirri and Ylenia Guerra (eds.), EU Rule of Law Procedures at the Test Bench – Managing Dissensus in the European Constitutional Landscape, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.

[11] As shown in the Council decision suspending funding under Regulation 2020/2092: Council Implementing Decision 2022/2506 on measures for the protection of the Union budget against breaches of the principles of the rule of law in Hungary, OJ L325/94.

[12] Armin von Bogdandy and Michael Ioannidis, “Systemic Deficiency in the Rule of Law: What It Is, What Has Been Done, What Can Be Done’, Common Market Law Review 51/1, 2014, 59–96.

[13] See e.g. Jan-Werner Müller, “Should the EU Protect Democracy and the Rule of Law inside Member States?”, European Law Journal 21/2, 2015, 141–160; Editorial Comments, “Talking about European Democracy”, 13 European Constitutional Law Review 13/2, 2017, 207–220.

[14] The political guidelines of the Juncker Commission included ‘A Union of Democratic Change’, but did not yet envisage a full policy strategy that included concrete legislative initiatives: see <https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/ad3f4ceb-aed8-4cc5-b6bb-4c60f448a5f2_en?filename=juncker-political-guidelines-speech_en.pdf>. The 2018 package “Securing Free and Fair European Elections” similarly did not lead to introducing new legislative proposals.

[15] See Ursula von der Leyen “POLITICAL GUIDELINES FOR THE NEXT EUROPEAN COMMISSION 2019–2024” at <https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024_en>.

[16] Those included, for example, the organisation of the Conference on the Future of Europe, or the commitment to support institutional reforms envisaging stronger rights for the European Parliament, including the right of initiative and co-decision in the legislative process.

[17] European Commission, Communication on the European Democracy Action Plan, Doc. COM/2020/790 final.

[18] European Commission, Communication on Defence of Democracy, Doc. COM/2023/630 final.

[19] On which see e.g. Armin von Bogdandy, “The European Lesson for International Democracy: The Significance of Articles 9 to 12 EU Treaty for International Organizations”, European Journal of International Law 23/2, 2012, 315–334.

[20] Generally, on the use of EU funding to promote EU values: Marco Fisicaro, “Beyond the Rule of Law Conditionality: Exploiting the EU Spending Power to Foster the Union’s Values”, European Papers 7/2, 2022, 697–719.

[21] See Article 49 TEU and the Copenhagen political criterion.

[22] For a discussion: András Sajó and Renáta Uitz, The Constitution of Freedom: An Introduction to Legal Constitutionalism, Oxford University Press, 2017.

[23] According to the CJEU, C-502/19 Junqueras Vies ECLI:EU:C:2019:1115, para 63, Article 10 “provides that the functioning of the Union is to be founded on the principle of representative democracy, which gives concrete form to the value of democracy referred to in Article 2 TEU”.

[24] See Articles 39 and 40 EUCFR. Note that the Charter does not contain a general right to free elections and democratic elections comparable to Article 3 of Protocol no. 1 to the ECHR.

[25] The modest list of democratic principles available in the “Declaration on Democracy”, adopted by the European Council in Copenhagen on 7–8 April 1978, is certainly not comparable to the Charter of Fundamental Rights neither in terms of its legal effects nor of the level of detail of its content.

[26] See Regulation 2020/2092, Article 2(a).

[27] For similar considerations: Paul Nemitz and Frithjof Ehm, “Strengthening Democracy in Europe and its Resilience Against Autocracy: Daring More Democracy and a European Democracy Charter, in Sacha Garben, Inge Govaere and Paul Nemitz (eds.), Critical Reflections on Constitutional Democracy in the European Union and its Member States, Hart Publishing, 2019; see in particular p 349 highlighting that for democracy “EU primary law does not contain the necessary consolidations and concretisations as were achieved regarding fundamental rights in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union”.

[28] For a discussion of the approach to democracy in the Big-Bang Enlargement: Dimitry Kochenov, EU Enlargement and the Failure of Conditionality, Kluwer Law International, 2008.

[29] See famously CJEU, C-138/79 Roquette Frères v Council ECLI:EU:C:1980:249; and a summary of the early case law of the Court in Giuseppe Federico Mancini and David T Keeling, “Democracy and the European Court of Justice”, Modern Law Review 57/2, 1994, 175–190.

[30] Nemitz and Ehm, “Strengthening Democracy in Europe”, 349.

[31] See also Yasmine Bouzoraa, “The Value of Democracy in EU Law and Its Enforcement: A Legal Analysis”, European Papers 8/2, 2023, 809–851, for similar observations.

[32] For a reflection on the topic, see Anna Gora and Pieter de Wilde, “The Essence of Democratic Backsliding in the European Union: Deliberation of Rule of Law”, Journal of European Public Policy 29/3, 2022, 342–362, who argued that the emphasis on the rule of law might be due to the fact that the debate has been mostly framed by lawyers (although the latter empirical observation would needed to be tested further).

---

About the Author:

Matteo Bonelli is an associate professor of European Union law at the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University (the Netherlands). There he is a member of the Maastricht Centre for European Law and a researcher in the UM Globalisation and Law Network. Matteo studied law in Turin, Antwerp and Maastricht and completed his PhD research at Maastricht University in 2019. His main research interests are in the area of EU constitutional law and EU fundamental rights, and he has published in particular on the EU’s tool to tackle constitutional backsliding in the Member States, effective judicial protection in EU law, national identity, and judicial dialogue in the EU. He is a member of the editorial board of European Constitutional Law Review and executive editor of the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law.

---

Citation: Matteo Bonelli, The European Union’s Democratic Turn, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 16.06.2026, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/65745

---

The text only may be used under licence Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

---

---