The recently appointed Dutch government has expressed its intention to simplify the procedures under Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union in order to facilitate the suspension of voting rights of certain Member States in the Council of the European Union. While this dilemma is not new, the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war has intensified political momentum within the Union to ensure greater alignment among Member States on key political and ideological questions. Safeguarding shared democratic values while simultaneously respecting national sovereignty therefore remains a persistent challenge, generating both legal and political dilemmas for the European Union.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico sent a strongly worded message to the new Dutch government. He voiced his criticism after the liberal three-party coalition in The Hague explicitly named Slovakia in its coalition agreement as a country that is “actively undermining Europe.”

“We will take firm action against countries that actively undermine Europe, such as Hungary and Slovakia; therefore, we will initiate the simplification of the Article 7 procedure to make it easier to deprive the states concerned of their EU voting rights,” the document states. It was adopted by the Dutch governing parties at the end of January.

According to Fico, questioning the sovereign positions of EU Member States is “the road to hell.” “You can smoke marijuana and recognize seventy genders. That’s your business. But threatening another state along the lines of sovereignty and legality is clearly crossing a red line,” the PM said.

The Government of “Records”

Snap parliamentary elections were held in the Netherlands last October after the strongest party in the previous governing coalition, the right-wing Party for Freedom (PVV) withdrew from the coalition over differences on migration policy, causing its collapse. In the elections, the liberal Democrats 66 (D66) and the Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders, each won 26 seats in the 150-member lower house. For D66, its roughly 17 percent support marked its strongest national performance to date.

The election was also unprecedented in that the margin between the two leading parties was exceptionally narrow—only 0.28 percentage points—in favor of D66. Ultimately, the liberal-progressive alliance reached an agreement to form a government together with the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the center-right liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). The coalition agreement, which has generated considerable debate, was approved by the lower house in The Hague in early February, and the new government was sworn in at the end of the same month.

As a consequence, the Netherlands has the youngest prime minister in its history in the person of 39-year-old Rob Jetten, who previously served as the country’s minister for climate and energy. He faces a challenging political environment, as the governing coalition is widely considered fragile even by Dutch standards, holding only 66 seats in the 150-member lower house.

The ongoing Dilemma of Supremacy

In the foreign policy chapter of the aforementioned agreement, the Dutch coalition not only takes a stance against “recalcitrant” EU Member States, but also clearly states that unanimity in EU foreign and security policy decision-making should be abolished. Regarding Ukraine, the document declares that the country will support Kyiv by all possible means on its path toward NATO and EU integration, and it is committed to maintaining long-term military and financial assistance. As stated in the document, preparing for the “wars of tomorrow” makes the consistent development of the defense industry indispensable; accordingly, The Hague is ready to enshrine NATO’s new defense spending target of 3.5 percent of GDP into law as soon as possible.

Both the Dutch and European public discourse note that as a founding member of the EU the Netherlands has traditionally been part of the mainstream in decision-making. This is not the first clash with Slovakia either: last autumn, the parliament in The Hague urged in a resolution the application of Article 259 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), under which any Member State may bring another before the Court of Justice of the European Union if it considers that the latter has failed to fulfill an obligation under the Treaties. According to The Hague, Bratislava breached obligations by amending its constitution last autumn to state that only two genders—male and female—exist. The Dutch Foreign Ministry said that Slovakia’s amendment could undermine the principle of EU law supremacy and it risks undermining fundamental rights. It is notable that the Netherlands was one of the sixteen EU Member States that joined the EU Commission’s case against the Hungarian Child Protection Act – its subject matter is almost the same as the Slovak case – in 2022. Hungarian officials have argued that education and child protection are national competencies and that the country has the exceptional right to regulate these areas.

Beyond the immediate political dispute, the issue also raises broader questions regarding the limits of external intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. In international law and international relations theory, the principle of non-intervention constitutes a fundamental norm governing relations between states. As codified in Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations, states are expected to refrain from interfering in matters that fall within the domestic jurisdiction of other states. Although the European Union represents a unique supranational legal order, similar tensions between collective oversight and national autonomy are also reflected in EU law. Principles such as sincere cooperation, the equality of Member States before the Treaties, and subsidiarity seek to balance the Union’s capacity to enforce common values with the preservation of Member State sovereignty.

A toothless lion?

Within this context, Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union is generally understood in the literature as a mechanism of last resort, whose application is inherently political rather than purely legal in nature. The EU may apply the two-tier procedure under Article 7 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU), also referred to by the Dutch, if it considers that the values on which it is founded—enshrined in Article 2 TEU, including democracy and fundamental rights—are being seriously breached in a Member State. In the history of the European integration, Article 7 proceedings have been initiated twice so far: in 2017, the European Commission determined that there was a clear risk of a breach of the rule of law in Poland, and in 2018, the European Parliament, by adopting the report of Dutch MEP Judith Sargentini, activated the so-called “nuclear option” against Hungary.

Critics argue, however, that the procedure continues to blur the lines between political and legal elements: the initiation, continuation and closure of the procedure are not based exclusively on legal norms, just as the definition of the fundamental values laid down in Article 2 may also vary from one Member State to another. The proceedings against Poland are usually cited as an example, which the European Commission closed a few months after the 2023 change of government in Warsaw. In the procedure against Hungary, the Council has so far held eight hearings, while the European Parliament has on significantly more occasions—more than a dozen times—called on the Member States to account for the stagnation of the process.

With the looming war on the EU’s Eastern borders, there are continued calls for a new approach, and appetite for a simplified Article 7 procedure. The European Parliament has repeatedly criticized the limited effectiveness of Article 7 in its resolutions, urging the Council to move the procedure forward and explore institutional reforms to ensure more effective enforcement of EU values. In parallel, broader debates on treaty reform—particularly those emerging from the Conference on the Future of Europe—have included proposals to reduce unanimity requirements in certain policy areas and to strengthen the Union’s capacity to respond to systemic rule-of-law challenges. Moreover, the introduction of the rule-of-law conditionality mechanism linking access to EU budgetary funds to compliance with fundamental values reflects a trend within the EU to develop more robust instruments for safeguarding its constitutional principles. These developments indicate that the perceived limitations of the current Article 7 procedure have increasingly become part of a wider discussion on the future institutional architecture of the European Union.

Tamara Judi is a communications and European affairs professional with experience in EU policy, parliamentary work, and international reporting. Between 2022 and 2025, she worked at the European Parliament handling communications, media monitoring, speechwriting, policy briefings, and event organization. Previously, she was a Brussels correspondent for Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet, covering EU affairs, European integration, and Brexit. She holds an MA in International Studies (European Studies) from Corvinus University of Budapest and a BA in International Studies with distinction from Eötvös Loránd University. She speaks English and German fluently, Dutch at intermediate level.