On November 21, 2025, the European Commission announced that it had opened infringement proceedings against the government led by Robert Fico for the constitutional amendments adopted on September 26 with 90 votes out of 150 members by the Slovak Parliament on the government’s proposal, which violate the rule of law and call into question the primacy of European law over national law, as enshrined in a declaration included in the Treaty of Lisbon and repeatedly confirmed by the Court of Justice.
Robert Fico had triumphantly announced that these amendments, which limit the individual rights of Slovak citizens, are a historic step for Slovakia because they affirm that the State “retains its sovereignty in matters of national identity, health, science, education, and civil status,” restoring the primacy of Slovak law over European law.
The Slovak government and parliament now have two months to respond to the European Commission, which had alerted them—as had the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe on September 24—before those changes were adopted, calling for them to be repealed and warning that, if they were not, Slovakia would have to answer to the Court of Justice, as Poland and Hungary have done in the past.
However, experience shows us the complexity and inadequacy of European procedures to prevent a Member State from violating the values and principles of the rule of law, because they have never gone beyond financial penalties and the suspension of European funds according to the criterion of conditionality, which the Patriots and Conservatives groups contest in the European budget.
Moreover, it has never been possible to initiate and complete the system provided for in Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union (LINK), which was partly inspired by Articles 4 and 44 of the 1984 ‘Spinelli draft’ (LINK), which could lead to the exclusion of a Member State government from voting rights in European intergovernmental institutions because that article is based on unanimous voting in the European Council, as defended by Giorgia Meloni on October 23.
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Union has repeatedly attempted to establish a system that incorporates into its material constitution, pending a true constitution, solid antibodies to block authoritarian tendencies that tend to undermine the primacy of European law and to defend the principle of equality of all European citizens before “European law.”
Europeans live in a community of law to which the States have democratically agreed to adhere — sometimes by referendum — by signing and sharing the “Copenhagen criteria” adopted by the European Council in 1993 (LINK) and reinforced by the European Council in Madrid in 1995, which foresaw the need for a ‘Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union’, which was then solemnly signed in Nice in December 2000 (LINK) and whose anniversary we will celebrate on December 5-6, 2025 (LINK).
In order to clarify and highlight the meaning of the Rule of Law, a European system that goes beyond national territories with an innovative approach to international law and the finally transnational dimension of fundamental rights, since 2011 the European Commission and the European Parliament have been inspired by the report of April 4 of that year adopted by the European Commission for Democracy and Law (CEDD or Venice Commission as an advisory and independent body of the Council of Europe).
It defines the five fundamental elements of the rule of law: legality, legal certainty, prevention of abuse of power, equality before the law and non-discrimination, and access to justice.
In this context, and in order to make these criteria more transparent to the public with the idea of preventing rather than punishing any violations of the principles and values on which the European Union is founded, the European institutions introduced a monitoring system several years ago which, in order to be effective, requires the loyal cooperation of national institutions and a willingness to engage in dialogue in the common acceptance of the primacy of European law.
For these reasons, and not because of ‘prejudice’, it is astonishing that the rule of law in Italy cannot be monitored by the ad hoc group of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties (LINK), as was decided by a majority vote on November 19 by the Conference of Group Leaders of the European Parliament.
The European Parliament’s mission, which is part of normal parliamentary activities, was in fact blocked by the group leaders of the EPP, to which Forza Italia belongs, the Conservatives, to which Fratelli d’Italia belongs, and the Patriots, to which the Lega belongs, joined by the group of nationalists to which the AfD belongs.
The monitoring group is chaired by Belgian liberal Sophie Wilmès, former Prime Minister of Belgium, and is composed of two parliamentarians from each group in order to ensure a balanced assessment.
During the parliamentary term 2019-2024, the group carried out monitoring activities in ten Member States and, in the seventeen months of the 2024-2029 parliamentary term, it has examined compliance with the rule of law in nine Member States, exercising a right and duty linked to the application of Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
As we wrote above, respect for the rule of law, together with the values and principles enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, is no longer an internal matter for a Member State but has become the exclusive competence of the institutions of the European Union (European Commission, European Council and Council of the Union, European Parliament, and Court of Justice) in order to ensure equality among all European citizens wherever they live within the Union, and is one of the criteria determining the conditions for becoming a member of the European Union.
In this spirit, the European Parliament established this monitoring group in 2019, which enables it to exercise the powers conferred on it by the Treaties, as is the case every year with the reports drawn up by the European Commission, which cannot be considered acts of interference in the internal affairs of a Member State, and with the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
On the initiative of the then Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and in particular the Undersecretary for European Affairs, Sandro Gozi, an annual procedure for monitoring compliance with the rule of law in the Union was also introduced in the Council of the Union in 2014.
In this context, does the decision by the presidents of four political groups in the European Parliament to block the mission to Italy represent an act of parliamentary arrogance and stupidity that risks backfiring on Italy and those who govern it?
Copenhagen, November 21, 2025
Pier Virgilio Dastoli