Democratic Backsliding in the European Union: is European democracy eroding?
By: Alessia Donna
Tags: European Union, Politics, Democracy, Government, International Relations

Photo by Arnaud Jaegers on Unsplash

The European Union (EU) has long been regarded as a beacon of democracy and civil liberties, however, the last few years have witnessed alarming trends in the overwhelming majority of European states. Democratic backsliding poses a great challenge to the European Union, perhaps the greatest since its origins.

A wider trend

Since 1974, the year marking the beginning of the so-called “third wave of democratisation”, over sixty countries in the world have been registering significant advancements in the quality of democracy, spurring great optimism, with hopes for a more democratic future. However, the enthusiasm was short lived and the trend now seems to be reversing.

According to Freedom House, a significant portion of regions in the world has been experiencing an alarming erosion of democracy, with 2020 marking the fifteenth consecutive year of such downward trend [1].

Numerous countries have experienced some form of democratic backsliding, with significant changes in their democracy score. Notably, the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Donald Trump in the United States, Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party in Hungary, along with countries like Israel, Turkey and Poland — to name just a few — are exemplary cases.

The year 2020 has been particularly negative for democracy, with the Economist Intelligence Unit reporting that the average global score of the 2020 Democracy Index fell from 5.44 (2019) to 5.37, on a scale from 0 to 10 [2]. This was the worst global score ever recorded since the index was created in 2006. Strikingly, no region in the world showed a positive trend in the quality of democracy.

Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit — Democracy Index 2020

What is democratic backsliding?

Scholars of Political Science have thus far failed to provide an agreed upon definition of the phenomenon of democratic backsliding due to its complex and multifaceted nature (Bermeo, 2016) [3]. However, the term is generally understood to indicate a slow but incremental erosion of fundamental democratic attributes, resulting in a decline of the quality of democracy in both democratic and hybrid regimes. In particular, the attributes being threatened are generally the competitiveness and fairness of elections (e.g. regular elections, opposition parties can operate freely), the respect for human rights and civil freedoms (e.g. free speech, press freedom, freedom of religion) and the rule of law (Guerrero & Iskihata, 2017) [4].

The topic of “democratic backsliding” has been gradually receiving more attention since the 1990s, as a consequence of the increased incidence of the phenomenon in established democracies and in more recent ones, with more countries moving away from democracy than those moving towards it [5].

Hungary, Poland and their illiberal turn

Over the last few years, Hungary and Poland have been undergoing a process of democratic backsliding, with Euractiv going so far as to describe Hungary as the “EU’s first dictatorship”[6]. Both countries have registered a significant decrease in their Democracy Index, with Hungary shifting from 7.21 in 2010 to 6.56 in 2020 and Poland from 7.05 in 2010 to 6.85 in 2020.

In Hungary, particularly since the constitutional amendments of the Fundamental Law, the rights of minority groups are being seriously threatened and the intervention in the realm of citizens’ private lives is very concerning.

Orbán and his party are staunch critics of same-sex marriage, abortion, muliculturalism and migration, and they have been actively curtailing basic civil liberties of Hungarian citizens in an attempt to preserve the “traditional values” of the country.

The Hungarian media landscape is increasingly dominated by a pro-government narrative, signalling a threat to the media independence in the country. However, this is just one of the many alarming trends Hungary has witnessed.

For almost over a decade, Orbàn and his party have dramatically increased their share of power, aided by the recent amendments to the Constitution. In doing so, they have undermined the system of checks and balances, particularly threatening the independence of the judiciary. Following a number of legal reforms, the fifteen judges to the Constitutional Court of Hungary can now be appointed without receiving the approval of the opposition. This has inevitably led to the appointment of various judges who openly support the Fidesz party.

Similarly, both the executive and the legislative branches of the Polish government are currently controlled by the dominating party in the governing coalition of the country, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość. Moreover, according to the European Commission, the independence and impartiality of the judiciary in the country is also not guaranteed.

Furthermore, the right to safe and legal abortion is also being threatened in Hungary, as women are subject to a mandatory waiting period of three days and they must attend two counselling sessions before receiving it. Even more alarmingly, Poland has recently restricted its rules on abortion, with a near-total ban, making it possible only in case of sexual violence, incests or threats to the survival of the mother.

Lastly, in the summer of 2020, about a third of Poland has declared “LGBT-free zones”. Such resolutions adopted by Polish municipalities are not legally binding and non-enforceable, however they have been effective in the stigmatisation and humiliation of the LGBTQI communities in the country.

What is the European Union’s response?

All in all, democracy appears to remain relatively robust in the EU, despite the aforementioned notable exceptions. The EU has often condemned the illiberal turn undertaken by Hungary and Poland. Just recently, as a response to the attacks against the LGBTQI community, the European Parliament has declared the EU a “LGBTIQ Freedom Zone” [7].

Furthermore, in the wake of the recurring violations of the funding principles of the EU, the European Commission has triggered an Article 7 (TEU) procedure against Poland, in 2017. As for Hungary, Article 7 has been invoked by the European Parliament in 2018. This procedure, also known as the “EU’s nuclear option”, allows EU Member States to suspend a country’s voting rights in the Council with a unanimous vote [8].

Due to the need for unanimity, Article 7 of the TEU has however proved of little use in both Poland and Hungary, as the two countries have pledged to veto any sanctions against the other. As an alternative strategy, European officials now seem to prefer bringing cases against the countries to the European Court of Justice, an approach that has led to mixed results [9].

In conclusion, democratic backsliding in the EU poses an obstacle of the utmost seriousness to the legitimacy of the bloc. It is now time for the EU to act as one and seriously confront the issue through diplomatic means, putting an end to the current laissez-faire approach.

List of references:

[1] https://freedomhouse.org/article/new-report-global-decline-democracy-has-accelerated

[2] The Economist Intelligence Unit. (2020). Democracy index: In sickness and in health? Retrieved from: https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2020/

[3] Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of democracy, 27(1), 5–19. doi: 10.1353/jod.2016.0012

[4] Guerrero, M. G., & Iskihata, P. S. (2017). Understanding democratic erosion in Latin America: The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as a case of “democratic backsliding” (period 2009–2017). CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política, 13(25), 31–54. [Spanish].

[5] Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. (2018). The Populist Harm to Democracy: An Empirical Assessment. Retrieved from https://institute.global/policy/populist-harm-democracy-empirical-assessment

[6] https://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/news/coronavirus-to-father-eus-first-dicatatorship/

[7] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20210304IPR99219/parliament-declares-the-european-union-an-lgbtiq-freedom-zone

[8] https://www.politico.eu/article/graphic-what-is-article-7-the-eus-nuclear-option/

[9] https://cepa.org/what-can-we-do-about-poland-and-hungary/