The 2026 report found that 47 per cent of its recommendations made in last year’s report have been followed up, either fully or partially.
Nicholas Watson
The European Commission’s seventh annual “Rule of Law Report”, published on Friday, highlighted developments which point to a “broadly positive trajectory”, even if that progress is uneven, reforms are slow and challenges persist.
The EU executive’s 2026 report – which looks at the 27 EU member states and the four candidate countries of Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – noted marked improvements and important reforms completed or underway in all four areas monitored and graded: judicial independence, anti-corruption safeguards, media freedom, and key institutional checks and balances.
The report – first introduced in 2020 in response to deteriorating rule-of-law situations in many member states, most notably those in Central and Eastern Europe – also assesses the progress made by member states on implementing the recommendations in the previous year’s report. The 2026 report found that 47 per cent of its recommendations have been followed up, either fully or partially, which compares with 57 per cent the previous year.
“This year’s report confirms a broadly positive trajectory with some important reforms completed or in progress. Nearly one in two of the recommendations made in 2025 has since been addressed either fully or partially. Of course, some recommendation might take longer to address due to legislative or electoral cycles and some of them are, indeed, complex, so the picture remains uneven across member states, with some challenges persisting in places,” European Commissioner Michael McGrath told a press conference.
By way of example, McGrath cited a reform in Bulgaria preventing political influence in the Supreme Judicial Council was adopted last year; new laws in Hungary that have increased transparency and created tools to fight corruption; and in Romania, new rules on lobbying for members of parliament have been introduced.
Looking at the first pillar, judicial independence, the report highlighted how the level of perceived independence by the public remains particularly low in Croatia and Bulgaria (below 30 per cent), as well as in the enlargement countries.
In a few countries like Slovakia and North Macedonia, shortcomings in fighting corruption persist, it said. In Hungary, no steps have been taken yet to adopt comprehensive legislation on lobbying MPs and revolving doors, exemplified by the news that the former minister of foreign affairs and trade, Peter Szijjarto, will join the Chinese carmaker BYD, even though he was a key player in offering handouts to that company for investments it made over the past decade.
Looking at the media landscape, while NGOs have expressed growing concerns about the state of media freedom, the report said the overall situation in the EU remains “broadly positive”. It highlighted how, since the publication of the 2025 report, legislation to specifically address the issue of state advertising has been adopted in Croatia, Slovakia, Greece and Slovenia, while draft legislation to regulate the matter is in preparation in Bulgaria and Czechia. Transparency and fairness in the distribution of state advertising to media outlets, a particular problem during the time Viktor Orban was in power, has not yet been addressed in Hungary.
Institutional checks are of particular concern in Slovakia, where certain amendments to the constitution adopted in September 2025 are raising worries related to the principle of the primacy of EU law.
