Tag: Rule of Law
Europe’s under-fire gatekeeper – POLITICO
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As EU leaders prepare to meet their Western Balkan counterparts on Wednesday, they might want to ask the European Commission’s point man for an impartial view of the region’s efforts to meet democratic standards and one day join the bloc.
Then again, they might not.
According to more than a dozen officials from multiple institutions and an analysis of internal documents, European Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi has overseen a push to play down concerns
Mob Justice Is Trampling Democratic Discourse
“It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner’s experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length.”
So begins the tale of Hester Prynne, as recounted in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter. As readers of this classic American text know, the story begins after Hester gives birth to a child out of wedlock and refuses to name the father. As a result, she is
Elections, lethal grannies and a bear – POLITICO
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BANYA, Bulgaria — Like the storks that glide in on their annual pilgrimage from Africa, we try to spend every summer in my wife’s home village of Banya in southwestern Bulgaria.
Fittingly, it was one of Banya’s storks that saluted us as fellow returnees this year by bombing our car with its well-digested lunch of frogs as we turned into the street where Anna grew up. With their 2-meter wingspans, these ain’t pigeons,
How the Zoom revolution will transform the Brussels bubble – POLITICO
This article is part of After Corona, a series exploring how the pandemic has changed the world.
The hottest debate in Brussels this fall won’t be about rule of law or the budget. It’ll be about teleworking, hot desking and online voting.
Organizations around the world are grappling with how to apply lessons from the pandemic and adapt to the Zoom revolution. And the European Union’s two largest institutions are no exception.
Debates have broken out in the European Commission
What Biden Must Do to Right the Wrongs of Guantánamo
Many Americans like to tell themselves a story about the choices the country makes in times of national crisis. We see our country’s policies as a pendulum. We may overreact at first, temporarily sacrificing principles and rights to meet the emergency at hand. But eventually the crisis recedes, and in restoring our commitment to foundational principles and the rule of law, we push the pendulum back toward equilibrium.
This story is comforting; it makes sense of America’s reactions to crises
There’s No Good Way to Protect the Presidency Anymore
When President Joe Biden announced in the weeks before his inauguration that he was committed to reestablishing an independent Justice Department, he didn’t say that it was going to be easy. During the first few months of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s tenure, the department has sparked ire among its critics on the left—and prompted annoyed statements from the White House—by taking a series of positions that seem, to some, uncomfortably close to the aggressive approaches staked out by the Trump
How ambassadors took over the EU – POLITICO
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As the coronavirus paralyzed politics across Europe, one group gained more power: EU ambassadors.
The envoys who represent the EU’s 27 member countries in Brussels kept meeting in person throughout the pandemic even as leaders, ministers and lawmakers were forced online.
Even more than usual, it fell to their committee, Coreper — an acronym of its French name, Comité des représentants permanents — to thrash out the differences between national governments on issues