How should the EU respond to democratic backsliding? A normative assessment of expulsion and suspension of voting rights from the perspective of multilateral democracy

Democratic backsliding in member states, such as Hungary and Poland, poses a significant challenge to the European Union (EU), undermining its core values of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. This paper addresses the fundamental normative question of how the EU should address such backsliding, by assessing the democratic justifiability of different EU responses. Drawing on the concept of multilateral democracy, the paper argues for the legitimacy and mandate of the EU to influence the domestic political institutions of its member states. It examines the normative implications of different tools, particularly the suspension of voting rights in the Council and the expulsion of backsliding states. By employing the framework of multilateral democracy, the paper offers a novel assessment of these tools, contending that this multilevel understanding reveals the suspension of voting rights as democratically preferable to the expulsion of member states.