Fact check: No, the EU is not eroding European democracy

Euronews

2 days ago

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has once again made dubious claims about the EU, its popularity, and the quality of its democracy.
In a post on X, the multibillionaire said that Ireland and all other EU members should leave the bloc, claiming that it is destroying democracy in Europe.
He made the comments in response to another post criticising a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which rejected a claim by the Irish government that it was unable to properly cover asylum seekers' basic needs due to an inundation of applicants.
The court said that EU law stipulates that member states need to guarantee an adequate standard of living for asylum applicants, including housing and vouchers, even when the situation is difficult.
Claims about the EU's supposed lack of democracy are often levied when the ECJ hands down a ruling that a particular political faction or figure doesn't like, but research shows that EU countries, and European nations in general, are some of the most democratic in the world.
The Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Democracy Index, published this year, says that there are 25 countries in the world that are "full democracies", 13 of which are in the EU.
It bases it assessment on five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation, and political culture, giving each of the 167 countries a score out of 10.
Some of the highest ranking include Sweden, Finland, Denmark and indeed Ireland.
The number is even higher when you take into account non-EU European countries, such as Norway, which is right at the top, Iceland, Switzerland and the UK.
Other non-European countries that scored particularly highly are New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan and Canada.
Many other EU countries are labelled "flawed democracies" by the EIU, but this is still the second-highest rank in the index.
France, Malta, Slovenia and Latvia are some of the member states making up the numbers here. Outside of Europe, Musk's home of the US is also listed as a "flawed democracy", as is his native South Africa.
The EIU notes that European countries dominate the top 10 and top 20 in the rankings, particularly the Nordics and Western Europe.
"Western Europe has the highest index score of any region, at 8.38, and was the only one to improve its overall score in 2024, albeit marginally," it said, adding that there was a decline in democracy worldwide while autocracies appeared to be growing in strength.
It added, however, that despite this overall success for the old continent, democracy in some EU nations has deteriorated, such as Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, the last of which is ranked as a "hybrid regime" — these combine elements of electoral democracy with authoritarian behaviours, according to the study.
In Hungary, there was a decline in public confidence in the government and a worsening of corruption, according to the EIU. Bulgaria also saw its corruption score deteriorate.
While there is still a clear democratic divide between eastern and western EU countries, the gap is closing slowly: the Czech Republic and Estonia made it into the "full democracies" list this year, after a decade of no eastern European country making the cut.