When democracy gets under pressure

Thank you very much for these comments and especially for the hint to the Economist Intelligence Unit 2018. Indeed, the state of democracy in Europe - notably in the established democracies - is subject of worries, and it would be very enlightening to have an additional article on this. I do not want to go into detail here because elaborating on democracies as political science does would surely exceed the scope of this article. However, as your comments are very valuable and you seem very well informed, I would suggest you to contact the editors-in-chief of the English language version : https://www.thenewfederalist.eu/write-for-us. Maybe you want to lay down your « food for thought » in an article ? However, the article was not meant to reflect a perspective worshipping « our European democratic values » - in contrasts, in thrust and scope consist in presenting a comprehensive perspective how democracy is generally defined and understood.

When democracy gets under pressure

Two very quick observations. The title picture is of Justice and has the sub title “Rule of law is a key element of democracy.” Who could argue with that ? Unfortunately the EU has a very long tradition of breaking its own laws when it is politically expedient to do so. The way in which the various TFEU Articles relating to the management of the euro are a case in point. That is of course before one considers the biased enforcement of laws dependent on the country being considered. To quote President Juncker when yet again EU laws on budgetary compliance were suspended for France “because it is France”. Italy wasn't accorded the same treatment.

The second observation would be that the Economist Intelligence Unit 2018 report on the state of democracy across the World notes that of the 28 states in the EU only 11 are full democracies. The remainder, including large states such as France, Italy, Poland and Belgium are classified as flawed democracies because while they have free and fair elections and observe human rights, they have serious problems in regards to media freedoms, political culture, participation levels and functioning of government. For those interested the UK and Germany are the only two large states that qualify as full democracies, while the flawed democracy in Romania is considered worse than those in Indonesia, Mongolia and Tunisia. Food for thought when there is talk of ‘European democratic values', and indeed in many ways supporting the main thrust of the entire article.

When democracy gets under pressure - commentaires

When democracy gets under pressure

When democracy gets under pressure