The EU rule of law crisis

Steven Barrett has a most invigorating Critic piece on how and why the EU legal framework is fracturing.


The EU rule of law crisis

The UK should be paying more attention

There is a rule of law crisis inside the EU. Despite that fact getting very little attention in the UK, the crisis has now reached a point where two eminent academics have stated that the very existence of the EU itself is under threat. Why?...

The current EU Crisis began in 2020 when Germany said, via its courts, that EU law did not apply to Germany. Germany used the justification of its own constitution to temporarily suspend EU law — because they did not want to be liable for the massive EU COVID costs. I warned at the time that if you do that — any other member state can do the same.

Since Germany did what it did, many nations have followed suit — each one suspending, or opting out, of EU law. Each such opt-out damages the rule of law inside the EU. Every time the rules suddenly do not apply to a member state, but do apply to all the others, the very fabric of law is assaulted and undermined. Because it keeps happening, there is a crisis.

It certainly feels like a pleasingly intractable EU crisis. A slow crisis too, which should make watching it unfold even more enjoyable.

The total lack of UK interest in this long running and very public crisis is itself fascinating. At the start of this year a respected legal charity is having a series of seminars on the rule of law. Do any of them mention the EU rule of law crisis? They do not. One is devoted to arguing about whether a rude newspaper headline (which has not been repeated) from 7 years ago is a threat to the rule of law (I’ll save you the hour, it isn’t). Leavers and Remainers alike are finally united in not caring about the EU.