re:constitution
2020/ 2021

Núria González Campañá

Mobility Phase: European University Institute, Florence

Rule of Law and Populism in Europe

Núria González Campañá is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in European Constitutionalism at the University of Barcelona. In 2019, she obtained her DPhil in Law at the University of Oxford (Rafael del Pino Foundation and British Spanish Society scholarships) under the supervision of Prof. Paul Craig. Her thesis focused on the relationship between EU Law and the secession of sub-national entities within Member States. She is also an Associate Post-doc Researcher at the Jean Monnet Chair in European Policies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Previously, she worked for more than three years as an Associate Lawyer at the Public Law Department of Garrigues, Barcelona. Before she had done internships at different international organisations like the Council of the EU (Brussels), the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (Tokyo) and Defensoria del Pueblo (Lima). She also holds an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School, Tufts University (“la Caixa” scholarship), including an exchange semester at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. And she also obtained a LL.B. in Law (1st class honours) from the University of Barcelona, including an Erasmus exchange at Heidelberg University.

Rule of Law and Populism in Europe

I would like to explore different cases of populism in Europe and identify the EU’s available tools to deal with such tendencies. The populist narrative advances a shallow conception of democracy, whereby democracy becomes simply a majoritarian principle prevailing over any other consideration. This conception of democracy is not the one promoted by the EU or the constitutional legal orders of the majority of EU Member States. Viewed correctly, rule of law is not in conflict with democracy, but it is essential to it. The EU institutions have certain tools to ensure compliance with the Rule of Law, like Article 7 TEU. However, the required high threshold (unanimity) deprives this mechanism of meaningful effects. So far, the most effective strategy EU institutions can deploy to limit or impede populist or illiberal reforms is the infringement procedure, including the option of interim measures. All these mechanisms can only be triggered once there is a Rule of Law breach. My research would like to explore as well the options EU institutions have to intervene in the domestic political arena to limit the rise of populist parties, long before these parties can influence legislative reforms.