Abuse of Law as a Legal Factor of European Disintegration
Authors:   Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Subochev Vitaly V. , Kulikov Mikhail A. ,   Moscow State Institute of International Relations
Published: March 2023

The alarming processes taking place in the EU today are indicative of the multifaceted and protracted crisis of European integration. Numerous academic papers traditionally and thoroughly explore the legal, financial, economic, political and social factors which facilitate the disintegration processes within the EU. Nevertheless, voluminous scientific researches of the factors, mentioned above, clearly bypass and underestimate the phenomenon of abuse of law which is in reality inextricably linked with them. Moreover, it is precisely the abuse of law which is underlying cause of many of those problems that today pose a real threat to the development of the EU. Despite the fact that the prohibition of abuse of law is enshrined in various documents that define the very existence of the European Union, an analysis of actual law enforcement processes and interpretation of law procedures as well indicates a flagrant disregard for numerous cases of abuse of law on behalf of the competent authorities. The most common form of abuse of law in the EU is the abuse of right to freedom of speech, which results in hate speech, bellicose and xenophobic statements, which have become widely spread European practice today. The abuse of the right to free collection, analysis and dissemination of information, backed by the abuse of the right to freedom of expression, also has a lot of negative manifestations that not only divide the European society itself, but also negatively attune representatives of other states towards the EU. This also involves a full-scale process of distorting historical truth and justice, numerous U-turns in the deeply-rooted attitude towards famous and legendary historical figures, etc. The abuse of the right that guarantees the equality of people regardless of gender, race, nationality, property status, attitude to religion and other circumstances is especially acute. A distorted understanding of this right and, as a result, abuse of it results in various manifestations of social racism - intolerant attitudes of people from different strata of society towards each other. Other consequences of abuse of law include: ambivalent legal regulation of migration processes within the EU and the policy of double standards; the EU's use of protectionist policies to support its markets; continuation of an active sanctions policy towards Russia. Apart from that, it is precisely the abuse of law that underlies the detabuization of many social prohibitions that have been formed for centuries in civilized societies and are responsible for its moral image. This entails a moral crisis in relations in modern Europe, which inevitably weakens the attractiveness of the European priorities themselves. Abuse of law results in general permissiveness, oversaturation of society with pathogenic information, misunderstanding of democracy and, as a consequence, leads to the exhaustion of unified and effective approaches to solving common European problems. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.