The rule of Law in the EU: the Annual Report and the special protection of financial interests

Abstract

The Rule of Law is a political and legal concept linked to the emergence of the liberal State that has evolved into our constitutional democracies. The emergence of complex international organisations such as the European Union have integrated the concept as one of their fundamental values. It has not been something that happened overnight, but rather a continuous practice of legislative action –original or derived– and of the jurisprudence of the High European Courts –ECHR and CJEU–. The latest steps in this process of integrating the Rule of Law in the Union have been taken with the establishment of the Annual Report on the Rule of Law and the Regulation on the general regime of conditionality for the Protection of the Financial
Interests of the EU linked to compliance with the Rule of Law and the other values provided for in art. 2 of the TEU. The work that is about to be read aims to frame the Rule of Law in the functioning of the Union and to review the value that these two new instruments of protection have generated.