Overcoming the diversity-consistency dilemmas in EU Rule of Law external action

The development of a coherent EU Rule of Law external action strategy requires that the Union overcome two “diversity dilemmas” and one “consistency dilemma.” The three dilemmas are interrelated and ought to be approached holistically. The first diversity dilemma pertains to the great divergence in the current uses and understandings of the concept of the Rule of Law. The second emanates from empirical reality, rather than conceptual challenge. In the contemporary global system, the EU faces a broad, possibly widening, set of political regimes which pose distinctly different Rule of Law challenges. A meaningful Rule of Law external action strategy therefore cannot be based on uniformity of conceptualization or policy prescriptions but must contend squarely with a reality of great, and arguably growing, variance. Grappling with diversity while maintaining conceptual and policy coherence represents the third key challenge to the development of a coherent EU Rule of Law external action strategy. Resolving the consistency dilemma necessitates accommodating diversity within a coherent conceptual and policy framework. This, in turn, requires that, in its external action, the EU approach the Rule of Law as a central pillar of a broader, liberal political-development agenda and that it adopts a vertical (rather than the traditional horizontal) understanding of the concept, involving broadly progressive, cumulative, and hierarchical spheres of Rule of Law conditions. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016