The State of Health of the Rule of Law in Europe: There is a General Decline in the New EU Member States?

Among the hot topics of the constitutional debate in recent years in Europe there is that on ‘the state of health’ of the rule of law. The situation became particularly worrying in/since? the last year, when a constitutional backsliding affected also Poland, a country of the new Europe considered until now the top of the class for economic progress and democratic stability. Many works have been devoted to the constitutional crisis in Hungary, Romania and Poland and to their danger for the preservation of European values. Almost all the opinions share the view of recognizing a democratic-constitutional regression in the new EU members. Among the reasons for the setback such works mention the absence of constitutional traditions and the hasty admission within the European Union. However specific constitutional worries seem to be present only for Hungary and Poland, while the Romanian case is treated, depending on the version, as a further proof of the weakness of the rule of law or, according to other versions, as an example of successful post-access compliance requirements for the peaceful resolution of the conflict between the Government and the Constitutional Court. The attention will be focused on a series of points: 1. The different views of the rule of law principle in Europe (how to ‘frame’ and define it in the current developments) 2. The peculiarities and identity of the new EU member states 3. The role of constitutional courts in the transition from communist rule 4. The weakness of the European democratic conditionality process