THE EUROPEAN UNION’S DEMOCRATIC PARADIGM IN THE POST-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES OF EASTERN EUROPE
THE EUROPEAN UNION’S DEMOCRATIC PARADIGM IN THE POST-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES OF EASTERN EUROPE

Summary/Abstract: The adhesion of some former communist states to the European Union, in 2004 and 2007, brought into discussion a new democratic model of the political regime in this organization. Initially including only Western Member States with a solid democratic tradition, the political composition of EU has substantially changed because of joining some Eastern countries without a strong and consolidated institutions and constitutions. Romania and Poland are, in our article, only two examples of deviations from the values and principles of the EU’s democratic paradigm. In the next rows we analyse the rule of law as a key-concept of the European political regime and we argue its importance to underline the constant gap between Eastern and Western Europe regarding the quality and substantiality of democracy.

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