Spain is the country with the highest number of open procedures for violations of European Union law, according to the Hay Derecho foundation.
With 81 open procedures, Spain is tied with Bulgaria (81 cases) and ahead of Greece (78) and Belgium (77) in terms of open infringement procedures according to data for 2023 managed by the foundation, which has collaborated on the annual Rule of Law Report produced by the European Commission since 2020.
According to data managed by the association chaired by Segismundo Álvarez Royo-Villanova, our country leads the Union members in terms of non-compliance with Community legislative obligations. The main reason is the incorrect transposition or application of directives (47 cases), followed by infringements due to late transposition (24 cases) and finally infringements of regulations, treaties or decisions (10 cases).
For Elisa de la Nuez, secretary general of the Hay Derecho foundation, this failure to comply reveals that “all these declarations of Europeanism made by the public authorities must be translated into something concrete”, as she stated this Friday during the presentation of the document.
Judiciary, Prosecutor’s Office and Constitutional Court
Hay Derecho’s annual report warns of the lack of independence of the state powers among themselves, the “close relationship” of the state attorney general with the government, as well as the dangers to democratic quality represented by the preponderance of laws and decrees, omnibus decrees (“which encompass everything, which serve for everything”, denounced De la Nuez) or the polarization of the Constitutional Court.
“In 2022, Álvaro García Ortiz was appointed as the new Attorney General of the State, whose position was renewed in 2023 despite the fact that the plenary session of the General Council of the Judiciary had issued a report in which it concluded that he was not suitable after the Supreme Court had annulled the promotion of his predecessor, Ms. Dolores Delgado, to the category of Chamber Attorney for abuse of power. Likewise, one of the factors that most highlighted the constitutional political framework during this period was the development of an amnesty law for certain actions related to the process, as a condition for the investiture of the Government. The parliamentary treatment of this law revealed very explicitly many problems related to the reduction of the role of Parliament and its subordination to the Executive branch, as well as the reduction of the necessary guarantees, both technical and from the point of view of citizen participation, resorting to the bill for urgent treatment. On the other hand, it is worth highlighting the accusations of “lawfare” made by some political parties against the judiciary, many of which concern precisely the application of the amnesty law. Among the positive aspects, however, it is worth highlighting the agreement reached between the PP-PSOE that allowed, after five years, to unblock the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary,” the report can be read as a summary of the problems of the Spanish democrats.
“Abuse” of the decree law
According to the data collected in the document presented this Friday, the last two years confirm the tendency, since 2019, to legislate mainly by decree-law despite the fact that “this instrument has an exceptional character since the Constitution in its article 86 literally says that it is intended for situations of extraordinary and urgent need.
“The proportions that were striking during the period 2018-2021 continue to be so in 2022-2023, with 27% and 32% of decree-laws respectively out of the total number of regulations with the rank of law approved.” In 2023, against 13 laws approved, eight decree-laws were approved.
Javier Zarzalejos, Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, also took part in the presentation event, stating that “the bodies of the European Union have an increasing role in monitoring compliance with the rules and in activating a debate that is usually uncomfortable for those who feel challenged.”
The popular MEP said that for some time Hungary and Poland were considered suspect of democratic problems and that there was “a slide from other democratic countries towards practices that really have little to do with the full embodiment of the rule of law and the democratic experience” and, in this sense, “we must look at our country that has serious problems with the effective implementation of the rule of law”, such as the “deterioration of the separation of powers and the checks and balances that balance the role of the government, the degradation of the legislative process and that Spanish democracy has never been less parliamentary”.
Zarzalejos also warned of the pressures on the judicial system and the situation it finds itself in before its unblocking after five years, which has caused “a collapse of some courts”, calling the use of procedures “no less serious legislative measures” to annul the resolutions.
