Ochrona praw podstawowych w Unii Europejskiej po traktacie z Lizbony – próba bilansu

Abstract

Fundamental Rights Protection in the European Union after the Treaty of Lisbon – an Appraisal
The paper attempts to provide an appraisal of the ten years that passed since the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon in the context of fundamental rights protection. The Lisbon Treaty introduced some major reforms in this field: (1) the new declaration of EU’s values (Art. 2 TUE), (2) granting binding force to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and (3) imposition of the EU’s obligation to accede to the ECHR. Results of these reforms are ambiguous. On the one hand, the number of references to the CFR in the CJEU’s jurisprudence significantly increased, while the Charter was used for the first time to declare invalidity of an act of secondary law. On the other hand, the EU’s accession to the ECHR – after initial successes of the negotiation process – was blocked by the Opinion 2/13 of the CJEU and it is hardly possible that it will happen in the envisageable future. Moreover, currently the EU struggles with an anti‑European and populist wave which erodes the authority of fundamental rights protection.