The conference is co-organized by the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies; the Swedish Network for European Legal Studies; the Centre for European Research and the School of Business, Economics, and Law (both at the University of Gothenburg) at the mid-point in the January to June 2023 Swedish Presidency of the European Union.
The presentation is part of a session discussing how the rule of law crisis affects the EU’s image as a global norm promoter and how this, in turn, effects the EU’s ability to act externally. According to Article 21 TEU, the EU ‘seeks to advance’ the rule of law in the rest of the world. But the EU’s external legitimacy will fade as its internal unity over the rule of law is challenged.
The EU has long included conditionality clauses in its international agreements, alongside other concrete and reciprocal international commitments based on promoting the rule of law and respect for human rights. Could third countries use these commitments to enforce the rule of law in the EU? The session also discusses to what extent the rule of law crisis may affect the enlargement process, which has been reanimated by Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Professor Manners’ presentation analyses the external dimensions of the EU’s autocracy crisis. It argues that the internal, accession, and external dimensions of the crisis are interlinked, and that more genuine social democracy, human rights, and rule of law would help address the crisis. It concludes that a paradigm shift to a holistic approach is needed to understand and address the causes, not just the symptoms of the EU’s autocracy crisis.
Conference website: https://www.sieps.se/en/seminars/upcoming-seminars/the-rule-of-law-in-the-eu-crisis-and-solutions/
Ian Manners research profile: https://www.svet.lu.se/en/ian-manners