Rule of Law as an Integral Part of the Common European Values

Summary The necessity to enforce the requirements of the rule of law have become the main impetus for the creation and development of the concept of common European values. The trend of greater emphasis on the legal and moral postulates which are common for Member States continues to grow, leading to their preference even over traditional aims of the Union. Despite the enormous legal, moral, ideological and political significance of common European values for the smooth functioning of the supranational entity, this concept remains still rather vague. Moreover its legal regulation in Article 2 TEU requires a number of improvements including the separation and “demarcation” of certain notions, as well as the introduction of new values. As regards the legal instruments for the protection of values referred to in Art. 2 TEU, it can be stated that currently European law is “armed” with a whole set of adequate instruments, the quantity of which has been increasing ever since the beginning of this century, nevertheless none of these instruments can be considered to be fully effective in a view of certain limits arising from the nature of the particular instruments or due to the procedures for their adoption, as well as concerning the conditions of their application. These limits prevent or even make their effective application impossible in the event of all potential infringements of the common European Union’s postulates in practice.