The Copenhagen Dilemma Still Unsolved: Could Citizens Help in Addressing Rule of Law Backsliding? The Case of Romania

There is an urgency, today, to find the proper way to face the rule of law backsliding in the European Union, as some member states are backtracking on the respect for it. The debate today refers to this issue as part of the “Copenhagen dilemma”: eventually outlined in Art.2 TEU, the principle of rule of law started being more carefully assessed and implemented during the 2004 EU enlargement towards Eastern European countries, as it was included in the legal requirements for acceding to the EU (the so called Copenhagen criteria). The dilemma refers to the fact that as of today the EU top-down instruments seem not to be enough in addressing this problem. This Paper aims at reflecting on how a bottomup approach could be introduced in the debate on the protection of the rule of law. Civil society and active citizens, indeed, are playing a key role in becoming protagonists standing for the EU core values: the case of Romania shows how citizens gave a great contribution to the protection of the rule of law. It would be advisable therefore to start developing an institutionalized partnership between public institutions and civil society: the model of participatory democracy could be tabled as a viable proposal for empowering citizens in the protection of the rule of law.