The Shortcomings of the Rule of Law Framework and Dialogue

In recent years, the European Commission has been confronted with crisis events in some EU countries, which revealed systemic threats to the rule of law. The Commission adopted the rule of law framework to address such threats. The objective of the rule of law framework is to prevent emerging threats to the rule of law to escalate to the point where the Commission has to trigger the mechanisms of Article 7 of the Treaty on the European Union. This chapter outlines the shortcomings of the Rule of Law Framework and the Dialogue. The chapter is organised as follows: Sect. 2 presents scope and rationale of the Rule of Law Framework and Dialogue. Section 3 discusses the procedural aspects of the Rule of Law Framework and Dialogue, and Sect. 4 looks at the evaluation of the Rule of Law Framework and Dialogue based on the Communication to Poland. Finally, Sect. 5 discusses the legal nature of the Rule of Law Framework and Dialogue.