http://dx.doi.org/10.17176/20160126-172908 https://staging.verfassungsblog.de/the-commission-vs-poland-the-sovereign-state-is-winning-1-0/ The Commission vs Poland: The Sovereign State Is Winning 1-0 Kochenov, Dimitry Vladimirovich eng 2016-01-25 electronic resource text/html ddc:342 Belarusization Copenhagen Criteria EU Commission Rule of Law Verfassungsblog Verfassungsblog--2366-7044 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Studying Soviet legal theory is probably one of the most tedious activities imaginable, but it can teach us a great deal, sadly, about the contemporary reality in some of the Member States of the EU: a reality captured by Uładzisłaŭ Belavusaŭ’s catchy phrase ‘Belarusization’ of the EU with enviable precision. Not a single person familiar with the basics of the principle of the Rule of Law could possibly be in doubt that what is going on in Poland now is a partly Soviet-style dismantlement of the Western values of democracy and the Rule of Law. By having started its famed Pre-Article 7 Procedure against Poland the Commission made four drastic mistakes and did not move any closer to stopping Polish backsliding.