OCR
UPGRADING RULE OF LAW IN EUROPE IN POPULIST TIMES ——o— DIMITRY VLADIMIROVICH KOCHENOV" Besides honoring Prof. Karoly Bard the task of this brief paper is to provide a concise tour d’horizon of EU law development in the field of the Rule of Law over the last years, which have significantly reinforced the powers ofthe supranational institutions in this domain, and have previously never been considered part of supranational competence / purview of regulation. INTRODUCTION I sat in Prof. Karoly Bard class exactly 20 years ago, earning LL.M. at CEU, which I have just rejoined, following 20 unfaithful years with the Dutch, Italian and US institutions (among many others). CEU LEGS has always stood on three pillars. One of these pillars radiating authority, wisdom and respect is Prof. Bard. I am thus immensely grateful for the generous invitation to contribute to this Liber offered to one of the founding fathers of a great school, which shepherded so many notable academics and practitioners. In honoring Prof. Bard I turn to the topic, which has preoccupied me over the last 20 years and which brought me back to CEU: the Rule of Law. ' CEU Democracy Institute, Budapest; CEU Legal Studies Department, Vienna; COMPAS Visiting Academic (Hilary term 2021), School of Anthropology, University of Oxford. An enlarged version of this chapter is forthcoming in the Polish Yearbook of International Law (2021). This work has been prepared in the auspices of the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme as part of RECONNECT project under Grant Agreement no. 770142. + 386 *