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Compliance with the Rule of Law in the EU and the Protection of the Union’s Budget : Further reflections on the Proposal for the Regulation of 18 May 2018

Strengthening the rule of law – and in particular judicial independence – has been on the EU agenda for several years and it is still a high priority. The situation in Poland and Hungary has confirmed that the measures provided in the Treaties are not sufficient to effectively counteract certain risks or infringements of the rule of law that may occur in the Member States. On May 2018, the Commission presented the Proposal for a Regulation on the protection of the Union’s budget in cases of generalised deficiencies as regards the rule of law in the Member States. In general, the proposed Regulation allows activation of a system to block access to EU funds in order to protect the Union’s financial interests from the risk of financial loss in the event of “generalised deficiencies” as regards the rule of law are detected. 
This paper will discuss the justification of this proposed Regulation and highlight the difficulties in assessing risks for the rule- of- law affecting the financial interests of the Union and the perils that the proposed monitoring procedure could entail. The issue is not whether the rule of law needs to be protected more effectively, the question is how to do it, without endangering other equally important values in the European Union.