On 22 June, the Hon. Dimitry Berberoff, Vice-President of the Spanish Supreme Court, delivered a lecture entitled “The Rule of Law in the EU: Challenges and Future Perspectives,” organised by the Club de Encuentro Manuel Broseta. Representing our research team, Susana Sanz, Antonio Bar, Manuel Martínez Sospedra and Almudena Del Castillo attended the event.
The lecture focused on the central role that the principle of the Rule of Law plays in the EU legal order, with particular attention to the leading role of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in safeguarding it.
The Rule of Law as the ultimate safeguard
Berberoff opened his talk by defining the Rule of Law as “the ultimate guarantee of our rights and freedoms,” an idea that captures two fundamental requirements: citizens’ trust in institutions and the subjection of all public authorities to the law. As he explained, the CJEU has been the institution most instrumental in consolidating this principle, acting on the basis of mutual trust between Member States and ensuring effective respect for fundamental rights.
Judicial independence, the “keystone” of the system
A substantial part of the lecture was devoted to reviewing CJEU case law on judicial independence, the area in which the Court has developed its most extensive doctrine on protecting the Rule of Law. Berberoff described judicial independence as “the keystone of the Rule of Law” and stressed its binary nature: it admits no degrees, it either exists or it does not.
On this point, he highlighted the decisive role of the Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses ruling, which paved the way for interpreting Article 19(1), second subparagraph TEU as an autonomous instrument for defending the Rule of Law within the Union. Following this milestone, national judges (acting also as EU judges), bear the responsibility of ensuring that the principle of primacy of EU law is not subject to political interests.
Commission v. Hungary case: a key precedent
The Vice-President also addressed the CJEU’s recent ruling in the infringement proceedings Commission v. Hungary (21 April 2026), which confirmed Article 2 TEU as an autonomous legal principle of binding force, rather than a mere declaration of political intent. According to Berberoff, this ruling reinforces the idea that the Union’s foundational values are legally enforceable before the courts.
Spain and preliminary references
Beyond the case-law analysis, Berberoff presented data on Spain’s participation in the dialogue with Luxembourg: between 15% and 18% of the preliminary references submitted by Spain to the CJEU originate from the Supreme Court itself. Within the EU as a whole, Spain holds an intermediate position in terms of the volume of preliminary references submitted.
A message of shared responsibility
The lecture concluded with a call for hope and shared responsibility in defending judicial independence (and, by extension, the Rule of Law) in Spain.
