Tag: EU

Rule of law and democratic performance from an EU perspective: isn’t it time to #TakeDemocracySeriously?

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Ana Filipa Ribeiro (LL.M. candidate in European Union Law at the School of Law of the University of Minho)

1. Preliminary considerations

Since 2020, the European Commission has been publishing the rule of law report, which aims to examine the latest developments regarding the rule of law in all Member States and this year marks the first report under the Commission’s new mandate.[1]  According to the European Commission itself, Europe’s rule of law report and yearly rule of law cycle strengthen the EU’s democratic resilience, security, and economy at a time when fundamental rights and democratic institutions face growing pressure worldwide.[2] But how do young people evaluate the state of democracy across Europe? What insights are emerging from the newest generation of European scholars and professionals?

That is precisely what the “Our Rule of Law Foundation” (ORoL) set out to explore. This organisation, with this goal in mind and on a “mission (…) to inform youth about the dangers of democratic backsliding through education and engagement, in order to achieve our goal of fostering a pan-European community of students active in the field of the rule of law in the EU”,[3] issued a call for applications and selected young people across Europe to join a project examining the state of democracy on the continent.

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The new VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) package: changes and challenges in the EU tax system

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Beatriz Magalhães Sousa (master’s student in European Union Law at the School of Law of University of Minho)

1. Preliminary considerations

Digital transformation, which initially affected only part of the industrial sectors, now acts as a wondrous influence on global economic development in today’s economy. A new paradigm has emerged, based on the digital economy that is taking shape – the “hyperconnectivity” that characterises this new reality transforms the relation between people and organisations, rendering notions of business models, interactions between companies and the way consumers move in the economy itself feel extremely arcaic.

From the explosion of e-commerce (in 2018, 94% of Portuguese people with Internet access had already made at least one online purchase),[1] we witnessed a democratisation of market’s access, which has paved the way not only for the elimination of geographical boundaries, but also for a certain equality on competition conditions between small enterprises and big corporate machines.[2]

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Editorial of September 2025

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Brief notes on the State of the Union (SOTEU) annual address of 10 September 2025

Pedro Madeira Froufe [Editor of this blog and Coordinator of the Group “Studies in European Union Law” (CEDU), of JUSGOV – Research Centre for Justice and Governance, University of Minho)]

On the same day that the President of the Commission delivered her 2025 State of the Union address[1] to the European Parliament, [2] Polish airspace was violated by a group of Russian drones. One of the concerns raised by President von der Leyen was therefore the urgent need to rethink and strengthen the common security and defence policy. In other words, on the very day that the State of the Union address was delivered in the European Parliament, Putin helped to corroborate one of the priorities set out in President von der Leyen’s speech! Moreover, these were the opening words of the speech, in a diagnosis that the President herself described as bleak: “Europe is in a fight. A fight for a continent that is whole and at peace. For a free and independent Europe. A fight for our values and our democracies. A fight for our liberty and our ability to determine our destiny for ourselves. Make no mistake – this is a fight for our future.”

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Pornographic deepfakes as a violation of women’s rights

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Mariana Coelho (Master's in European Union Law at the School of Law of University of Minho)

1. Preliminary considerations

The rise of new technologies has consistently provided more challenges for human rights and democratic values all over the world. With the widespread use of AI technologies, it has never been easier to create manipulated content, namely of sexual nature. And if deepfakes have shown to be increasingly realistic, the risk is ever growing.

In fact, the last few days have seen the emergence of a new trend on social media websites, such as TikTok and X: mukbang[1] and/or ASMR[2] videos created entirely through AI systems, featuring predominantly women of color, and replicating their mannerisms and accents. In these videos, AI models have even been trying to convince the viewers that they are real people, with most of them being dotted with an unimaginable level of realism. If it is this easy to create seemingly innocent videos, that can blur or even virtually delete the line between real people and AI models, the issue of pornographic deepfakes is, or should at least be, now more than ever, at the center of public discourse, with women’s rights being at risk at levels never before seen.

Digital sexual violence targeting women has been a persistent and widespread concern for several years, and its ongoing prevalence has elevated it to a priority within the EU’s digital policy agenda. From political efforts, legislative action and digital literacy initiatives, the EU has undoubtedly become “the world’s leading tech watchdog”.[3] In face of how quickly violent discourse seems to be spreading through multiple societies, the European Parliament has increased pressure on the Commission and Member States to act more quickly and aggressively on the matter of women’s rights, with Irish Member of Parliament Maria Walsh calling for stricter criminal penalties for those who create and disseminate pornographic deepfakes in December 2024.[4] The MEP called to attention the fact that current legal frameworks that exist in the EU, no matter how revolutionary, have proven to be insufficient to combat malicious uses of technology, that are used to harass, defame and exclude women from public discourse and professional life every day.

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Pfizergate: the billion euro silence and the future of EU transparency

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João Pedro Sousa (master’s student in European Union Law at the School of Law of the University of Minho)

The role of transparency in EU Law

Transparency within the European Union’s constitutional order is not a matter of institutional courtesy or political goodwill: it is a binding legal obligation anchored in the Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU). The EU’s legitimacy as a supranational legal order is not derived solely from formal democratic representation, but from its ability to guarantee open governance, accountability, and legal certainty. These principles converge in the citizen’s right of access to documents, which is both a general principle of EU law and a fundamental right under Article 42 CFREU.[1] Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 operationalises this right, setting the legal framework for public access to the documents of the EU institutions.[2] Article 11(2) TEU, which mandates the Union institutions to maintain an open, transparent, and regular dialogue with civil society, reinforces the legal architecture of transparency, a requirement that becomes especially salient when decisions involve significant public expenditure and health policy.

Against this normative backdrop, the judgment delivered by the General Court (GC) in Case T‑36/23 on 14 May 2025,[3] publicly referred to as “Pfizergate”, emerged as a pivotal episode in the evolution of EU transparency law. [4] The dispute was triggered by a request submitted by journalist Matina Stevi of The New York Times, seeking access to text messages allegedly exchanged between the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer.[5] The messages were reportedly exchanged during negotiations that led to a contract for the procurement of 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine, amounting to approximately €35 billion in public expenditure, plus an additional €2.4 billion in related contracts. The Commission’s refusal to grant access to these communications, on the grounds that they were not in its possession, raised fundamental questions about the scope of transparency obligations and the nature of institutional accountability during states of emergency. [6]

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Summaries of judgments: Stevi and the New York Times v Commission

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Summaries of judgments made in collaboration with the Portuguese judges and référendaire of the General Court (Maria José Costeira, Ricardo Silva Passos and Esperança Mealha)

Judgment of the General Court (Grand Chamber), 14 May 2025,

Case T-36/23 Stevi and The New York Times v Commission

Access to documents – Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 – Documents relating to the text messages exchanged between the President of the Commission and the chief executive officer of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer – Refusal to grant access – Presumption of veracity associated with the declaration of lack of possession of documents – Absence of plausible explanations making it possible to establish the reasons for non-existence or lack of possession – Retention of documents – Principle of good administration

Facts

The General Court (hereinafter “GC”), sitting as grand chamber, upheld the action brought by Ms Matina Stevi, journalist of The New York Times, and by The New York Times Company, and annulled the final decision of the European Commission rejecting Ms Stevi’s request for access to all the text messages exchanged between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Albert Bourla, chief executive officer of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, between 1 January 2021 and 11 May 2022, as part of the Commission’s purchase of vaccines from Pfizer in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In its decision (hereinafter “the contested decision”), sent to Ms Stevi on 16 November 2022 and adopted in accordance with the detailed rules for the application of Regulation regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents,[1] the Commission stated that, since it did not hold any document corresponding to the description given in the initial application, it was not in a position to grant that application.

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Editorial of June 2025

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40 years since Portugal joined the European Union
(or about Constante’s refusal to jump, the dog from José Saramago’s “The Stone Raft”)

Pedro Madeira Froufe [Editor of this blog and Coordinator of the Group “Studies in European Union Law” (CEDU), of JUSGOV – Research Centre for Justice and Governance, University of Minho)]

I

Forty years ago, on 12 June 1985, in the Jerónimos Monastery (Lisbon), the Treaty of Accession of Portugal to the then European Economic Community (EEC) was signed – eight years after Portugal had formally applied for membership. This brings us back to the character named Constante, the dog in the 1986 novel “The Stone Raft” by José Saramago, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. In this novel, Saramago develops an allegory: the physical, geographical separation of the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of the European continent. In Saramago’s text, this unusual event with no scientific explanation (the separation of the Peninsula) is an allusion to what the author foresaw/feared would happen as part of the unification of Europe: the Iberian countries would be forgotten, cast aside, “sailing adrift”, unable to identify culturally, socially or economically with the rest of Europe. The dog Constante appears at the very beginning of the narrative, hesitating between Spain and France (“the rest of Europe”) as soon as he feels the first crack, and ends up jumping (opting) for the Peninsula, in the process of separation. We shall return to this character, the dog Constante, later in this text.

To begin with, and to give a brief historical overview of Portugal’s pre-accession phase, it was on 28 March 1977 – just after the so-called PREC (“ongoing revolutionary period”) had run its course and only three years after the “Carnation Revolution” (on 25 April 1974) – that the then Portuguese Foreign Minister, José Medeiros Ferreira, sent a letter formally requesting Portugal’s accession to the EEC. In other words, the Portuguese option for European integration was formally recognised as early as 1977.

It is important to remember that around two years earlier, Greece had applied for membership, favouring the direction of European integration at the time (during the 1970s) towards southern Europe. In a way, Greece’s accession in 1981 also signified a reunion of Europe (then “Community”) with its classical mythology. This mythology is at the origin of its name: Europa (Princess Europa and her abduction by a love-struck Zeus…).

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Protecting fundamental rights through the infringement procedure: Advocate General’s Opinion in CJEU Case C-769/22 “Commission v. Hungary”

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Gonçalo Martins de Matos (Master in Judiciary Law by the University of Minho | Member of the Editorial Support of this blog)

There is a very relevant case regarding the defence of fundamental rights being processed at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU): an infringement procedure moved against Hungary by the European Commission on the grounds of breaching Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). It is a relevant case because it is the first case to frame abuses of fundamental rights by Hungarian authorities as an overarching systemic problem, instead of the usual sectorial and solitary breaches. This case might open up the infringement procedure to a valuable role of a fundamental rights protection mechanism,[1] as it has been defended by legal scholars and practitioners. And that role is very important in the context of rule of law backsliding and recent democratic erosion.

Fundamental rights are of elementary importance in the European Union (EU)’s legal order. As a matter of fact, the EU is axiologically based on a set of values ​​common to its Member States, namely respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, enshrined in Article 2 TEU and self-imposed as an objective of the Union itself, according to Article 3(1) TEU. It is this conception of the EU as a community of values ​​that contributes to the construction of the “society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail” referred to in the second part of Article 2 TEU. More than a community of values, the EU creates law to which its legal and institutional framework, its Member States and its citizens are bound, resulting in the notion that the Union submits to the principles that itself created. From this notion we conclude that the EU conceives itself as a Union subjected to the Law, in which the exercise of European public power is linked to EU law. We are in presence of the principle of the rule of law translated into the logic of the EU: the principle of the Union of Law, which functions as a limit to the actions of European institutions and a guarantee of the rights of individuals attributed by European provisions.

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Digitalisation of Justice – feedback is open on the putative Commission’s Communication on a Digital Justice Strategy for 2025-2030

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Joana Covelo de Abreu (Editor of this blog and Key-staff member of Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence “Digital Citizenship & Technological Sustainability” – CitDig, Erasmus+. Project Assistant of the Jean Monnet Network ENDE)

A feedback period is open from the 26th of May 2025 to the 23rd of June 2025 concerning a call for evidence on a future Commission’s Communication establishing a strategy on Digital Justice for the time span of 2025-2030.

A call for evidence can be used when the European Commission exercises its right of initiative, as it is enshrined under Article 17 (1) of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU). Although it is usually mentioned in the context of the legislative procedure – since, for the most part, the European Commission is the institution with an independent power to bring legislative proposals to the equation –, this institution is entrusted with the task of planning, preparing and proposing all adequate initiatives to promote the general interest of the Union.

In this sense, a call for evidence must be used to define the scope of i) “a politically sensitive and/or important new law or policy”; ii) “an evaluation of an existing law or policy”; and iii) “a fitness check of a bundle of related existing laws and/or policies”.[1] A call for evidence aims at describing the problem that is justifying the Commission’s action, its objectives, while outlining “policy options”. In this particular action, no impact assessment is scheduled, especially since the Commission wants to see whether it will, in the last quarter of 2025, adopt a Communication (i.e., a non-legislative act) focusing on a Digital Justice Strategy for 2025-2030 (DigitalJustice@2023).

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Portugal’s Social Climate Plan: public consultation has begun

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Nataly Machado (PhD Candidate at the School of Law of the University of Minho, FCT research scholarship holder – 2023.04074.BD) and Cecília Pires (PhD Candidate at the School of Law of the University of Minho, FCT research scholarship holder – 2023.01072.BD)

As part of the Fit for 55 package –  the set of measures adopted by the European Union (EU) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 and to enable the goal of climate neutrality by 2050 – the EU Emissions Trading System II (ETS2) was created: a new emissions trading system, separate from the existing EU ETS, which will cover and address CO₂ emissions from fuel combustion in buildings, road transport, and additional sectors.[1]

According to calculations by the European Commission, more than 34 million people in the EU are already affected by energy poverty.[2] In 2023, one fifth of the resident population could not afford to keep their home adequately heated. Across the EU, this proportion reached its peak in Portugal and Spain (20.8%). In 2024, the proportion in Portugal decreased to 15.7%, but remained higher among the at-risk-of-poverty population (30.9%) and the elderly population (22%).[3]

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