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Tendo como pano de fundo a crise do Estado de Direito na Europa, a presente contribuição parte da centralidade da independência do poder judicial na União Europeia. Procurando fazer uma ponte entre esta garantia e os direitos dos cidadãos europeus, revisita-se assim a jurisprudência do Tribunal de Justiça da União Europeia em matéria de responsabilidade do Estado por erros cometidos no exercício do poder judicial. Recorda-se, desta forma, o acórdão Kobler, analisando em seguida o acórdão Ferreira da Silva e Brito, e sublinhando-se as conclusões principais que dos dois decorrem nesta matéria; para depois analisar alguma jurisprudência dos tribunais superiores portugueses, com o objectivo de determinar o impacto daquela jurisprudência europeia na prática jurídica nacional., Against the backdrop of the rule of law crisis in Europe, the present article discusses the centrality of the principle of judicial independence in the European Union. Aiming to make a connection between the latter guarantee and the rights of European citizens, the article revisits the caselaw of the Court of Justice of the European Union on state liability under EU law due to acts committed by the judiciary. It departs thus from the Kobler judgement to the decision in Ferreira da Silva e Brito, highlighting the main conclusions deriving from said cases on this matter; and analysing afterwards some jurisprudence of high courts in Portugal with the objective of clarifying the impact of said case-law on the national judicial practice.

European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(2), 749-771, I. Clear occasions. - II. Confirmation and advancement of rule of law value-dogmatics. - II.1. Voluntariness of accession, pre-legal normativity of values. - II.2. Updating the dogmatic of self-assertion under the rule of law. - II.3. Conclusion: working with protection obligations while restraining from intervening in the constitutional conflict. - III. Reconceptualizing unrestricted primacy. - III.1. The traditional basis. - III.2. First addition: elements of international law to strengthen primacy? - III.3. Second addition: equality through primacy, subordination through self-obligation. - III.4. Conclusion: "normed" primacy as a result of selective listening. - IV. Conclusion: Union law's identity between dialogical crisis containment and constitutional monologue., The Grand Chamber's judgment of 21 December 2021 on rule of law deficits in Romania underlines the vulnerability of the Union's legal order. The facts of the case vividly demonstrate once again that its weak spot is spread across the national judicial systems of the Member States. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) opposes the developments by further strengthening the values while underlining special obligations Romania entered into upon accession. Of central importance beyond that are the Court's first additions to the long standing reasoning on Union Law's unrestricted primacy. The argumentation resembles a closing figure which is supposed to resolve the irreconcilable claims of final authority in favour of Union law. The attempt turns out to be unconvincing because the constitutional foundations of the integration process and its plurality of actors are selectively ignored.

European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(2), 909-928, I. Introduction. - I.1. From initial rejection to acceptance of differentiated integration as an institutional feature of the EU migration policy. - I.2. The "migration crisis" and the "fractured values" of the EU migration policy: differentiated integration as an indicator or a catalyst? - II. Differentiation as a governance tool: the intergovernmental roots of the EU migration policy. - II.1. Defining EU migration policy. - II.2. The evolution of the EU migration policy: from a purely intergovernmental to a quasi-fully integrated policy. - II.3. The institutional challenges of differentiation for EU migration policy: defining the territorial scope of EU migration law. - III. Intersecting the migration' and rule of law "crises": Unveiling a deeper layer of differentiated integration? - III.1. From the institutional to the normative dimension of differentiation in the EU migration policy. - III.2. Worlds apart? The dis-connection between the rule of law and migration "crises" in the case law of the CJEU. - IV. Final remarks., As with the whole Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ), EU migration policy is one area of EU policy-making in which differentiated integration has found its clearest expression. Owing to its intergovernmental roots, differentiated governance has been considered the necessary compromise for a deeper integration in this policy field since the Amsterdam Treaty entered into force. The adoption of flexible mechanisms aimed to accommodate the political interests of some Member States. While many of the technical intricacies related to this special institutional set-up have now disappeared in the aftermath of Brexit, looking at the possible intersections between the recent migration and rule of law "crises" has brought to the fore a more serious form of disagreement between the Member States on the deeper values - or the possible absence thereof - with respect to EU migration policy. This has become especially clear in the way in which the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) seems to have adopted a disconnected approach in its case law relating, respectively, to the "rule of law crisis" and the "migration crisis" so far. This Article argues that beyond the fragmented scope of the EU migration policy caused by differentiation, lies a deeper "fracture" on the values that underpin it. In this sense, it invites for a more careful examination of what could become a widening gap by examining especially the relevant case law of the CJEU on asylum in the aftermath of the "migration crisis".

European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(2), 697-719, I. Introduction. - II. Protecting EU values through ESI funds: The new fundamental rights "enabling conditions". - III. Decentralising the "politics of values": The potential of the Justice, Rights and Values Fund. - IV. The Recovery and Resilience Facility: Shaping Europe's recovery in line with EU values. - V. Conclusions., In recent years, the EU budget has emerged as an attractive instrument to foster compliance with the fundamental values enshrined in art. 2 TEU. Especially following the exceptional increase in EU expenditure, the power of the purse seems to provide indeed more persuasive arguments compared with the existing EU rule-of-law toolbox. While most of the attention has focused exclusively on the rule-of-law conditionality regime ultimately introduced with Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2020/2092, this Article argues that the EU budget offers further, and arguably more promising, avenues to protect, promote and enforce the EU common values through financial means. Most notably, this Article explores the potential and challenges of the EU budget as a values-oriented policy instrument focus-ing on three elements of the new budgetary framework: i) the set of fundamental rights "enabling conditions" attached to the European Structural and Investment Funds, among which stands out an horizontal enabling condition related to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; ii) the "Justice, Rights and Values Fund", with special attention to the reforms concerning the financing of civil society organisations; iii) the "Recovery and Resilience Facility", which provides valuable instruments to police compliance with rule of law and fundamental rights standards thanks to its connection with the European Semester and the European Pillar of Social Rights.

Tendo como pano de fundo a crise do Estado de Direito na Europa, a presente contribuição parte da centralidade da independência do poder judicial na União Europeia. Procurando fazer uma ponte entre esta garantia e os direitos dos cidadãos europeus, revisita-se assim a jurisprudência do Tribunal de Justiça da União Europeia em matéria de responsabilidade do Estado por erros cometidos no exercício do poder judicial. Recorda-se, desta forma, o acórdão Kobler, analisando em seguida o acórdão Ferreira da Silva e Brito, e sublinhando-se as conclusões principais que dos dois decorrem nesta matéria; para depois analisar alguma jurisprudência dos tribunais superiores portugueses, com o objectivo de determinar o impacto daquela jurisprudência europeia na prática jurídica nacional., Against the backdrop of the rule of law crisis in Europe, the present article discusses the centrality of the principle of judicial independence in the European Union. Aiming to make a connection between the latter guarantee and the rights of European citizens, the article revisits the caselaw of the Court of Justice of the European Union on state liability under EU law due to acts committed by the judiciary. It departs thus from the Kobler judgement to the decision in Ferreira da Silva e Brito, highlighting the main conclusions deriving from said cases on this matter; and analysing afterwards some jurisprudence of high courts in Portugal with the objective of clarifying the impact of said case-law on the national judicial practice.

Kriza vladavine prava je eden izmed najtežjih izzivov, s katerimi se Evropska unija sooča v zadnjem desetletju, njena osrednja razsežnost pa so sistematični napadi na pravosodje. Pristop Evropske unije k reševanju krize se zdi neučinkovit, kar gotovo velja za poskuse Evropske komisije. Slednja je zapravila ogromno časa za dialog s težavnimi državami članicami, katerih politične elite so zastavile načrten odmik od vrednote vladavine prava, pravo pa le instrumentarizirale za utrditev oblasti. Evropska komisija je z upanjem v dialog težavne države članice zgolj opogumila in jim omogočila sprejem spornih pravosodnih reform in ugrabitev neodvisnih pravosodnih organov. Enako slabo se je Evropska komisija odrezala v tožbah zoper težavne države članice, saj se je prepogosto osredotočila zgolj na formalno zmago pred Sodiščem Evropske unije. Slednje je prav zato izkoristilo predhodno vprašanje portugalskega sodišča v zadevi C-64/16 - Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses in poudarilo položaj nacionalnih sodnikov kot evropskih sodnikov ter njihov pomen za celotni pravni red Evropske unije. S to ključno sodbo je Sodišče Evropske unije Evropski komisiji v roke porinilo primerno orožje za boj s krizo vladavine prava v posamezni državi članici, hkrati pa nacionalnim sodnikom ponudilo dodatno možnost varovanja njihove neodvisnosti. Na podlagi navedenega primera je Evropska komisija sprožila vrsto tožb proti Poljski, ki so slednjo vsaj deloma prisilile v opustitev nekaterih spornih pravosodnih reform. Dejstvo pa je, da krize vladavine prava institucije Evropske unije ne morejo premagati same, najpomembnejši korak bodo morali narediti državljani posamezne države članice in na naslednjih volitvah izkazati željo po spoštovanju vladavine prava. The rule of law crisis is one of the most formidable challenges the European Union has faced during the last decade, with the core problem of systematic attacks on judiciary. Attempts of the European Union to solve the crisis seem inefficient, which is especially true for European Commission's response. The latter spent too much time engaging in dialog with problematic member states, whose political elites purposefully turned away from rule of law values and used law simply as a tool to entrench power. European Commission's faith in dialog thus only emboldened troublesome member states and enabled them to pass controversial judicial reforms and capture independent judicial bodies. European Commission was equally ineffective in bringing infringement cases against member states as it was too often satisfied with a formal victory in front of the Court of Justice. The latter therefore took a preliminary question from a Portuguese court in the case C-64/16 - Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses and used it to highlight the role of national judges as European judges as well as their importance for the legal order of the European Union. With this crucial ruling the Court of Justice gave the European Commission appropriate weaponry to combat rule of law crisis in individual member states, while offering additional protection to the national judges. On the basis of the aforementioned ruling the European Commission was able to bring several infringement actions against Poland which forced the latter to abandon some of its controversial judicial reforms. However, European Union’s institutions cannot solve the rule of law crisis on their own. The most important step must be made by citizens of problematic member states. They have to express their wish for rule of law adherence in the next elections.

By departing from the debate on the EU’s rule of law violations in Hungary and Poland, this thesis examines how the Europeanisation process can explain the violations of the EU’s rule of law in Hungary (2010-2020) and Poland (2015-2020), and the differences and similarities herein. The thesis draws on top-down Europeanisation that includes the misfit hypothesis, facilitating factors that have enabled change in the domestic policies and polities, and measurement. This is complemented with the actor-centric theories of rational and sociological institutionalism that emphasise illiberal preferences and nationalist beliefs. The thesis applies a comparative research that focuses on the differences in the processes and qualitative content analyses based on documents. The thesis finds that Europeanisation processes in Hungary and Poland are characterised by retrenchment, i.e. De-Europeanisation. Particularly, domestic facilitating factors such as reduced multiple veto-points, change of formal institutions, the governments’ role as agents of change, and use of informal institutions such as domestic political cultures have led to domestic changes. These processes unfold differently: in Hungary, the government shapes a national identity and legally changes the political system. In Poland, the government is the protector of traditional values and unconstitutionally changes the political system.