European Values Conditionality. EU better regulation and better rights protection with a focus on European values and their conditionality

This output advocates that impact assessments  in EU law and policy should be systematic and designed to ensure not only respect for fundamental rights and freedoms, but also values on which the Union is founded. This publication is an attempt of application of EU better regulation and better rights protection tools with a focus on European values and their conditionality in the process, beyond EU funding conditionality. It is based on the findings of the EU-funded Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence for the Rule of Law and European Values CRoLEV at the University of Central Lancashire in Cyprus (UCLan Cyprus), which reinforce the need for a systematic European values impact assessment in EU law and policy at the supranational and national level in the EU and beyond. In line with guidance on impact assessments at the level of the EU and the Council of Europe, the present impact assessment on European values conditionality is accompanied by a set of recommendations in fields of relevance to the rule of law and European values under study at CRoLEV, as well as a synopsis of original research and empirical data collected and analysed at CRoLEV. Following an initial consideration of the legal and political landscape and the methodology of the impact assessment which set out the problem questions, the necessity for the EU to (still) act at this stage is considered. The goal of achieving more effective European values protection and democratic resilience is then presented, followed by the various policy options to achieve this goal. Addressing the possible gap in the protection of European values between available policy options reflected in rights and values enforcement mechanisms in Europe, the impact of the different options on stakeholder groups is considered, before a particular option is preferred for reasons presented. The impact assessment concludes with a presentation of CRoLEV’s monitoring and reporting mechanisms proposed to further uphold the rule of law and European values in Cyprus and Europe in the current context, before embarking on recommendations and synopsis of CRoLEV research and empirical data with respect to civic engagement, democratic space, rule of law principles and values and public responses to crises in Cyprus and Europe.