Concretised’, ‘Flanked’, or ‘Standalone’? Some Reflections on the Application of Article 2 TEU

The present article aims to assess some delicate constitutional issues raised by the pending case Commission v Hungary (C-769/22). It first explains the general duty for Member States to respect the values of Article 2 TEU as an essential requirement of their EU Membership, within the meaning of the judgment Repubblika. Then, it dwells upon the model provided by Article 2 TEU, the interconnection among its values and principles, and the connections of those values with other principles affirmed by the Treaties and analyses the extraordinarily comprehensive violation of that model by the Hungarian legislation. Finally, it argues that there are three different potential dimensions for applying Article 2 TEU.