What challenges and opportunities will the EU face in the next legislative period after the EP elections in 2024? And what consequences will the result have for the efforts to strengthen the rule of law in the EU? We discussed these questions in Berlin on 25 April in the context of the RESILIO results.
Before our panel debate in the evening, our experts discussed several solutions to existing problems concerning civil society, media pluralism, electoral integrity and the EU instruments for the rule of law during a closed workshop. Solutions which focused on the following:
- A reorientation of suspended EU funds towards support for civil society and the media;
- Communication campaigns at national level to explain and categorise the EU sanctions for the domestic audience;
- Simplification of the European Commission's intervention in competition matters when national competition authorities are captured.
But also critical questions were discussed – for instance, those about the potential competence of the EU to regulate national elections. These considerations serve the purpose of developing the RESILIO Toolbox: a collection of ideas on how to invest in rule of law resilience in the EU, in addition to the existing tools and measures for defending the rule of law itself.
We would like to thank the Mercator Foundation and the CERV programme for their support for this very successful event.