From Moral Values to Legal Obligations – On How to Activate the Union’s Common Values in the EU Rule of Law Crisis

Abstract

The EU faces one of the deepest crises since its formation. A dangerous rule of law “backsliding” in several Member States undermines the Union’s common values and puts Europe to the test. This raises the question of how to substantially address violations of EU values in order to call the respective Member States to order. Unfortunately, the traditional EU acquis turned out to be a blunt sword and made one thing clear: relying on EU law as it stands will not solve this “values-crisis”. Thus, the present paper tries to remove the blinkers and think out of the “acquis box”. It explores recent jurisprudential developments and academic proposals and integrates them into one common framework. The proposed solution will lead to an operationalization of the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU by entangling them with other specific obligations of EU law.