The European Commission released its fifth annual Rule of Law Report checking on development in the area among member states showing that the bloc is moving forward to strengthen their democracies despite challenges that remain in media and anti-corruption measures.
The Commission reported that around 68% of the recommendations issued in the 2023 report have been addressed either fully or partially. Despite this success, the report shows signs of deterioration in the rule of law in some countries.
“Unfortunately, concerns remain in several Member States in different categories. This means that even more work needs to be done,” commented Věra Jourová, Vice-President for Values and Transparency upon presenting the report. As part of the report, the Commission issued individual recommendations to each member states to help guide their legislative agenda for the next year.
The report inspected all member states plus Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia as part of their accession process, in order to control the state of their accession process and ensure that they remain on the right path towards accession and lay the foundation for further progress once they will be part of the European Union. The report didn’t make any recommendations to those four countries, but just gave guidelines.
Overall, the Commission found that countries worked on reforms on their judicial systems but systematic concerns remain, especially on judicial independence. The report pointed at safeguards in appointment procedures and at the autonomy of prosecution as areas to improve across the bloc. Unfortunately, the report also found deterioration in some country’s judicial systems and called for urgent reforms.
Another area that was taken into serious consideration is media freedom and pluralism. The report noted that member states worked to improve journalists’ conditions using the new European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) as a working framework. Also, here member states could work better, especially regarding financial stability of public broadcasters and transparency of ownership for private ones.
In those areas and others, the Commission hopes that member states will use the report as basis for further debate and framework for future legislation. Commenting on the report, Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders said that “We have seen that dialogue can help make important progress. And this is precisely why this report has and will continue to serve as a reference to initiate debates at national level and help drive national reform agendas.”
