The democratic backsliding in the european union and the challenge of constitutional design

Abstract

The democratic backsliding a la Polonaise is not an exception.1 Rather it follows the path already blazed by Hungary. In the context of the European Union (EU) though, the democratic backsliding is much more than just an isolated example of yet another European government going rogue. There is an important international and European dimension to what has transpired in Poland over the last two years: the failure of the supranational order to respond to the danger of democratic backsliding from within. The legal order of the EU is defined by openness and flexibility to accommodate the diversity of its components and the ever-changing socio-political circumstances that provide a background against which the EU law operates and strives for the attainment of its objectives. While politicians and political parties in democracies routinely put forward competing visions for society and politics, they always stick to the language of probability in setting out their alternatives to the existing government.