EU Rule of Law Reform Momentum Slows for Second Year
The European Commission's annual Rule of Law report, published Friday, reveals that EU member states implemented only 47% of Brussels' recommendations to fight corruption and uphold democracy in 2025, down from 57% in 2024 and 68% in 2023. This marks the second consecutive year of declining implementation. The report covers national justice systems, media freedom, and government checks across all EU countries and candidate nations. Notable shortcomings include Slovakia, where no new high-level corruption cases were detected and investigative capacity deteriorated; Spain, where delays in high-level corruption cases persist; and Hungary, where despite some reforms, no progress was made on high-level corruption convictions and political interference risks remain. EU officials Henna Virkkunen and Michael McGrath defended the process, attributing delays to electoral cycles and parliamentary procedures, and noting that easier recommendations have already been addressed.
Editorial responsibility
- No named human review is recorded for this page.
- Reports are grouped by semantic similarity and deterministic rules. Language models may assist titles, summaries, translation and cross-source analysis; the page itself is projected from evidence records.
- Current automated evidence projection