“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 comprehen-sive violation of that model by the Hungarian legislation. Finally, it argues that there are three different potential dimensions for applying Article 2 TEU.