Breakfast Briefing: The Data behind Rule of Law and EU Enlargement

The online event “Breakfast Briefing: The Data behind the Rule of Law and EU Enlargement”, held on 13 May 2026, introduced the RESILIO-ACCESS Monitor, a new tool designed to assess democratic resilience and rule of law performance in EU accession countries. As the enlargement policy gains renewed momentum, the initiative aims to strengthen evidence-based approaches to evaluating reform progress and conditionality mechanisms.

Keynote speaker John Morijn outlined how democratic resilience fits within the EU accession framework. The EU places particular emphasis on judicial independence, anti-corruption, media freedom, and institutional impartiality. He also highlighted how conflict conditions can significantly shape democratic environments, while emphasizing that long-term resilience depends not only on formal institutions but also on the strength of civil society and media systems.

Preliminary findings from the RESILIO-ACCESS framework (2014–2024) identify key drivers of resilience, including low corruption, effective regulatory enforcement, and well-functioning justice systems, alongside societal factors such as electoral democracy and academic freedom. To support further analysis, the newly launched RESILIO-ACCESS visualization platform enables users to compare accession countries with EU averages, examine individual indicators, and explore scenarios demonstrating how resilience capacity could improve through alignment with EU benchmarks. The briefing, featuring contributions from York Albrecht and Misha Popovikj and moderated by Maria Skóra, presented the monitor as a tool for advancing a more data-driven EU enlargement policy.

You can watch the recorded version of the event here: RESILIO-ACCESS Breakfast Briefing with John Morijn

The data discussed, in the form of the RESILIO-ACCESS Monitor, is available online and can be accessed here.

Read the RESILIO-ACCESS MONITOR User manual

About the RESILIO-ACCESS: Resilience Observatory on the Rule of Law in EU Accession Candidates project: How resilient is the rule of law in the EU enlargement countries? RESILIO-ACCESS uses an interdisciplinary approach to answer this question and identifies how EU enlargement policy can contribute to resilient democratic structures in the region. The project is jointly implemented by the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) Berlin and the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” Skopje.