The Copenhagen hope: on democracy in the EU

... The only question is, how. It once seemed a distant phenomenon that would never make it to the forefront of European popular attention - not anymore. Everyone in Brussels is talking about the EU’s apparent inability to preserve democratic and human rights guarantees, as laid down in the Copenhagen criteria, once a country is inside the Union. Worries about Austria in the early 2000s, later Poland, Romania, and the ongoing woes about Hungary seem to have solidified the notion in European officialdom that it is an issue they have to resolve and indeed quickly - Hungary looks already lost. The argument that issues of democracy should remain the member states’ competence and ...