Strengthening the Rule of Law at the Supranational Level: The Rise and Consolidation of a European Network

The aim of this article is to show how (new) modes of governance emerge in EU politics. It seeks to find out how European institutions manage to define new policy tools and modes of governance when their legitimacy is not only contested but it also reveals a regulatory gap. By examining recent debates concerning the ability of the EU to safeguard the rule of law at the supranational level, this article shows that in a field in which politicization raises the pressure to act at the EU level but member states do not delegate more hierarchical powers, the European Commission applies a network approach that spans beyond the EU. This article shows that, in order to strengthen the EU's input, output, and throughput legitimacy, the Commission is creating a complex multi-institutional framework and has introduced a 'division of labour' between several international bodies and organizations. The article focuses not only on the emergence of this network, but also on its evolution and expansion.