Tom Theuns, "The Need for an EU Expulsion Mechanism: Democratic Backsliding and the Failure of Article 7" (2022)
"The rule of law is a means by which [western EU members] want to knead us into something that resembles them," warned Viktor Orb\xe1n during his successful campaign for a fourth consecutive term as Hungary's prime minister.\nYet, until Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the EU has held back on the demands it makes of members regarding core democratic norms and values. For a decade, the EU's institutions and most of its members have worried about the possibility of the emergence of a full autocracy within its borders but have been held back by diplomatic interests and the constraints imposed by unanimity in the use of Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union.\nThe war, Orb\xe1n's re-election, a split in the Polish-Hungarian axis, and the lengthening queue of eastern membership applicants have changed the backdrop. The political will to ensure a liberal-democratic union has been reinforced but Article 7 is still inadequate to the task.\nTom Theuns, assistant professor of political theory and European politics at Leiden University\u2019s Institute of Political Science, has a nuclear option in his new paper:\xa0The Need for an EU Expulsion Mechanism: Democratic Backsliding and the Failure of Article 7\xa0(Res Publica, Springer - 2022)*.\n*https://link.springer.com/arti...\nMentioned:\xa0Memory and the future of Europe: Rupture and integration in the wake of total war\xa0by Peter Verov\u0161ek (Manchester University Press, 2020) and\xa0Adding a Bite to a Bark? A Story of Article 7, the EU Enlargement, and J\xf6rg Haider\xa0by Wojciech Sadurski (Sydney Law School Research Paper No. 10/01)\n*The authors' book recommendations are:\xa0Technopopulism: The New Logic of Democratic Politics\xa0by Christopher Bickerton and Carlo Invernizzi Accetti (OUP Oxford, 2021) and\xa0The Goldfinch\xa0by Donna Tartt (Little Brown, 2013).\nTim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors (a division of Energy Aspects).\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law