The Rule of Law report, which annually monitors the rule of law situation in EU Member States, is a fundamental tool that needs to be strengthened, as already stated in September 2021. Progressive improvements such as the inclusion of country-specific recommendations have been introduced in its third edition.

Civil society, media and journalist organisations have come together to issue a set of EU-wide and country-specific recommendations to strengthen the reporting process and make the reports directly enforceable. In addition to a non-public working document with country-specific recommendations shared with the European Commission, we issue a set of horizontal recommendations for strengthening the impact and inclusiveness of the reports.

The recommendations issued by this joint statement are:

  1. Strengthen the impact of the reports with concrete recommendations, national dialogues and conditionality.
  2. Formalise the consultation and dialogue process to ensure inclusive and meaningful participation of all actors.
  3. Act on the priority recommendations of civil society.

Read the joint statement here .

Tags: European policies and legislation Advocacy Rule of Law

This content is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response  (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries. The project is co-funded by the European Commission.