Democracy, as well as the rule of law, is one of the founding values of the European Union. With the recent rise of some authoritarian governments in Europe, scholars have focused primarily on the efforts led by the European Commission and the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”)1 to curb democratic backsliding. While European institutions have struggled defending the rule of law inside the Union through lawsuits and economic sanctions against those governments
Antonio Caiola∗ and Fernanda G. Nicola