Liberties says 96% of European Commission recommendations remain unimplemented — Balkan Insight

The human rights organization Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) said that at least 96% of the European Commission’s rule-of-law recommendations have not been fully implemented by EU member states. This was reported by Balkan Insight, citing the organization’s Rule of Law Gap Analysis 2026.

According to Liberties, 54% of the recommendations have seen no progress or only limited progress. The organization believes that the gap between the European Commission’s recommendations and their implementation remains significant. It also noted that 96% of the recommendations issued in 2026 repeated recommendations from previous years, and 65% of them date back to 2022.

Assessment of the European Commission’s report

Liberties described the European Commission’s assessment as overly optimistic. The Commission stated that member states had fully or partially implemented almost every second recommendation issued in 2025 — 47%. At the same time, the human rights organization believes that this figure conceals a substantial difference between full and partial implementation and does not explain why certain problems remain unresolved.

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The organization also criticized the EU’s toolkit for countering democratic backsliding, calling it fragmented. According to Liberties, the European Union lacks a common framework that would link various mechanisms, including infringement proceedings and the Article 7 mechanism.

Media freedom

Liberties drew attention to the removal from the report of recommendations related to the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). Most of its provisions became legally binding on member states in August 2025. As a result, the share of recommendations in the area of media freedom and pluralism fell to 6% of the total, compared with 16–22% in previous years.

Liberties’ partners in Bulgaria, Croatia and Spain reported continued political interference in the work of public media. In Croatia, Italy, Malta and Romania, opaque media ownership structures persist, according to their data. The organization also stated that the actions of Slovakia’s government appear to be deepening existing EMFA violations.