LOYAL COOPERATION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION INSTITUTIONS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ARTICLE 7 OF THE TREATY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract

This paper aims to explore do the EU institutions practice mutual sincere cooperation concerning the implementation of article 7 of the TEU, improving its efficiency and the CJEU’s capability to improve the efficiency of the aforementioned article indirectly,  through protection of the principle of sincere  cooperation between institutions. For that purpose, following the introductory part of the paper, an analysis of approaches the EU institutions took in order to try to improve article 7’s efficiency and protect values determined in article 2 of the TEU is presented as well as the cooperation the EU institutions realized in the process. In the third part of the paper the author analyses the CJEU case law regarding sincere cooperation between EU institutions and applies conclusions that this case-law provides to exercising institutional cooperation as determined in article 7 of the TEU. In conclusion, this paper shows this cooperation does not satisfy the obligation of sincere cooperation as established in article 13 of the TEU, but that article 7’s efficiency can be indirectly improved by CJEU by upholding the obligation of sincere cooperation of EU institutions.