Debate: The establishment of an EU Mechanism on Democracy, the Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights
Date: MONDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2020
Speaker: Didier Reynders
Language: EN

For this reason, the Commission presented last week – as was said by the rapporteur, Mr Šimečka, and thank you for your report – its first annual report on the rule of law, at the centre of a comprehensive European rule of law mechanism. The mechanism is broader than just the report. The mechanism is a yearly process with the aim to prevent problems from emerging or deepening, notably by having open debates and by changing best practices.  The aim of the rule of law report is to look at key developments as regards the rule of law across the whole European Union. It covers both positive developments and challenges, and provides a country—specific assessment of all the 27 Member States.  With regard to the methodology as proposed by the Parliament for the annual monitoring cycle, the Commission agrees on the importance of the consultation of stakeholders and on using a variety of sources, including via visits in the Member States. This has been the approach already for the first annual rule of law report. All the Member States provided written input and we also carried out a targeted stakeholder consultation where over 200 stakeholders provided written input. We also conducted more than 300 virtual country visits, meeting with Member State national authorities, with judicial and other independent authorities and with relevant stakeholders, including civil society organisations. We made sure that this process was robust, transparent and inclusive. We have also kept the Parliament fully informed of all progress. This report represents the Commission’s assessment, but it relies also on assessments prepared by a variety of independent experts and bodies, including the Fundamental Rights Agency and the Council of Europe.  Let me also say a few words on the follow—up to the report. Its aim is to kick-start an inclusive debate at European and national level. I know that is precisely one of the objectives of the draft report of the European Parliament discussed today. In this respect, we welcome in particular the proposal that the Parliament and the Council discuss the content of the annual report presented by the Commission. We should maximise this momentum to bring about change in the Union.  In this regard I know technical preparations in Parliament have started too. Your first meetings with national parliaments are in October, November. I can only welcome this as a very positive development. We are committed to work on strengthening the cooperation with the European Parliament and the Council through regular meetings and exchanges of views in order to build this process together in an inclusive and constructive way.  We have a common interest to swiftly set up the rule of law mechanism, and the publication of the rule of law report last week is an important first step towards this objective. Pursuing this under the existing institutional arrangements would ensure the effectiveness of our cooperation. We should develop our modus operandi step by step. Whether in the future such cooperation should be codified in an interinstitutional agreement will have to be assessed at a later stage on the basis of the experience gained through the application of the European rule of law mechanism. So we will continue a permanent debate year after year on the basis of the next report, and maybe we’ll try to organise better cooperation, year after year among the two institutions.