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.
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.
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