EC officials confirmed in writing that there is no definition of the rule of law in the EU documents. The issue of the rule of law does not fall within the competence of the EU, Witold Waszczykowski, an MEP, former head of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on Twitter. He also included a discussion of the Commission’s response to his question on the rule of law.
The former head of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on Twitter the information about the European Commission’s response to his question on the subject of the rule of law. The MEP asked about the “definition of the rule of law”, its legal basis and “objective criteria for monitoring the rule of law”.
According to Witold Waszczykowski, the Commission’s responses show, inter alia, that “there is no legally binding document defining the so-called rule of law” and “the Commission uses the principles and recommendations of the Council of Europe, which is not an EU body. So we are dealing here with journalism”.
“You can see clear as day here that the Commission is not in a position to provide precise and legally binding criteria. It is very dangerous because it leads to arbitrary, discretionary behavior that has nothing to do with the rule of law,” Waszczykowski reported.