{"id":421479,"date":"2025-03-17T13:18:48","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T12:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/03\/17\/italia-minaccia-stato-diritto-ue-liberta\/"},"modified":"2025-03-17T14:10:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T13:10:52","slug":"italy-among-the-dismantlers-of-the-rule-of-law-in-the-eu-according-to-a-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/03\/17\/italy-among-the-dismantlers-of-the-rule-of-law-in-the-eu-according-to-a-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy among the “dismantlers” of the rule of law in the EU, according to a study"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – In 2024, Europe<\/strong>, gripped by insecurities and fears for its security and economic stability, has\u00a0decidedly shifted<\/a>\u00a0more to the right<\/strong>, to the detriment of the\u00a0rights<\/strong> and freedoms<\/strong> of the citizens of the Union. The latest Liberties Rule of Law 2025 report<\/a>,\u00a0released\u00a0today (March 17) by the Civil Liberties Union for Europe<\/strong>,\u00a0states that without decisive action, the EU, stricken in each of its countries by political manipulation of the judiciary, weak anti-corruption, and restriction of press freedom, “risks further democratic erosion.”<\/p>\n

The NGO<\/a>, which, with the collaboration of humanitarian bodies and associations from 18 EU countries, has been measuring the health of European democracy every year since 2019, analyzed the behaviors of various national governments, pointing out that “the most worrying category of countries” is that of the “dismantlers<\/strong>” — governments that\u00a0intentionally take measures to weaken the rule of law in almost every aspect.<\/p>\n

These include Italy<\/strong>: researchers indicated how the Meloni government has drafted proposals to give the Ministry of Justice “absolute power” over prosecutors, thus expanding political control over the judiciary<\/strong>. The case of the cancellation of the broadcast of Antonio Scurati’s “anti-fascist monologue” and the disciplinary\u00a0case<\/a>\u00a0initiated against journalist Serena Bortone for the inclusion of the speech in her RAI program “Chesar\u00e0” were cited as examples of the Italian government’s “unprecedented” interference<\/strong> in the public service\u00a0media<\/strong>. The report cites\u00a0Bulgaria<\/strong> and Slovakia<\/strong>\u00a0for undermining civic space and the constitutional system, Croatia<\/strong> for the government’s obstruction of fraud investigations against the EU budget, and Romania<\/strong> for lacking\u00a0adequate tools to\u00a0protect\u00a0the electoral process. The report places\u00a0Hungary<\/strong> in a separate category due to significant regression, primarily\u00a0due to the launch of the Office for the Protection of Hungary’s Sovereignty, which holds broad powers of investigation into Hungarians active in public life (to the detriment of media and NGOs).<\/p>\n

While Ireland, the Netherlands, Malta, and Greece maintain the same levels as in 2023, the report warns how France and Germany, historically defined as “model democracies,” are not immune from drift. France<\/strong> has seen a decline<\/strong> in the protection of the rule of law, mainly due to the abuse of constitutional procedure under\u00a0art. 49.3<\/a>, which allows the executive to push through decisions without any vote, and\u00a0due to the increasing restriction on freedom of expression introduced at the Olympics. The report also cites concern for Germany<\/strong>‘s “excessive and disproportionate” responses to pro-Palestinian events, in several cases canceled and censored, and the insufficient countering of the “revolving door” system, i.e., the tendency of senior officials to hold positions in areas they have recently regulated. The Czech Republic<\/strong> emerged as the country that took the most action to strengthen democracy,\u00a0while it acknowledged Poland’s democratic restoration<\/strong> efforts despite the difficulties Donald Tusk’s government faces.<\/p>\n

The NGO called for the European Commission t<\/strong>o strengthen the EU’s monitoring<\/strong> activity by tying it to the release of European funds and to speed up legal action<\/strong> against the rule of law violations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Civil Liberties for Europe report: “Europe’s democratic recession deepened in 2024.” While Hungary remains an “electoral autocracy,” our country, along with Romania, Croatia, Slovakia, and Bulgaria, is among the dismantlers of democracy. France and Germany are also deteriorating<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7883,"featured_media":276527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29788,25681],"tags":[30670,27048,30731,27722,26130],"class_list":["post-421479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diritti-en","category-politics","tag-democracy-en","tag-release-en","tag-italy-en-2","tag-rights-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421479"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421490,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421479\/revisions\/421490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}