Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Extraordinary meeting Extraordinary LIBE meeting
19 October 2026
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LIBE European Parliament
Follow its sittings00:51 - 06:00
Speaker 1
Well, dear colleagues, let's start the meeting of the LIBE Committee. The first item on our agenda is the adoption of the agenda itself. If there is no objections to the draft already circulated, then the agenda is adopted.
Interpretation will be provided in all languages except Latvian and Maltese. On nomination of rapporteurs, I'd like to inform the committee that Mr. Michał Wawrykiewicz has been nominated as the rapporteur for an own-initiative report on the Commission's Rule of Law Report, the annual report 2026. And Mrs. Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle has been nominated as the co-rapporteur for the joint CONT-LIBE report on the future revision of the EPPO regulation. And on nomination of opinions, Mr. Kristian Vigenin has been nominated as the rapporteur for the LIBE opinion to ITRE-IMCO report on regulation of the European Parliament and the Council establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe's cloud and AI ecosystem. You will find in the meeting documents the outcome of the coordinators' meeting of 15 of October 2026 and the outcome of the coordinators' written procedure of the 1st of October.
I wonder whether the committee endorses these coordinators' decisions and recommendations. And then on adoption of minutes, we have those corresponding the 1st of June and the 8th of June. If there are no objections, then the minutes are approved. And now we move to item number five, and we have the pleasure to host today Commissioner Michael McGrath, the Commissioner responsible for democracy, justice, the rule of law and consumer protection, who will present to us the Commission's 2026 Rule of Law Report. After the postponement, the European Commission published the report on the 17th of July 2026, just before the summer holidays.
The Commissioner presented it already during a public meeting of the DRFNG on the 15th of September in Strasbourg.
This annual exercise is an important opportunity for us to take a stock of developments of the rule of law across the member states, but also to reflect on how the rule of law cycle is working in practice and importantly, on the follow-up to the recommendations identified in previous editions. We are particularly interested this year in hearing the Commission's assessment of the main developments and challenges identified in 2026 report, as well as in understanding how the Commission intends to address persistent shortcomings and ensure that the recommendations lead to concrete progress in the member states. We would also welcome some reflections on the broader development of the rule of law cycle, including the Commission's cooperation with Parliament and other stakeholders and on how the report can continue to serve as an effective tool for preventing, addressing and resolving situations of rule of law backsliding, including in connection to the next MFF. As you know, the EP adopts a yearly own-initiative report on the Commission's rule of law report. Last year, Mr. Arvanitis was the rapporteur, while this year it will be Mr. Wawrykiewicz, as I just announced, to take care of the report of the Commission's 2026 report.
European Parliament has requested repeatedly among other issues that the systemic and structural shortcomings and the corresponding fundamental recommendations to address them be highlighted more clearly. To indicate explicitly the proposed solutions and timeframes as well as to anticipate the publication of the rule of law report so to allow for it to be published in a moment of the year when institutions are working fully can examine it properly and react to it. This request was not was included not only in the Armanitis report but also raised during the DRWG meeting of the 15th of September as well as in individual exchanges with MEPs. So we would be happy to hear from the Commissioner his views on this issue. I now invite our Commissioner to intervene for eight minutes for his presentation after which I will give the word to the word to the representatives of political groups.
Commissioner McGrath it's a pleasure to have you here. Welcome again. The floor is yours.
06:00 - 07:39
Speaker 3
Well thank you very much Chair dear Javier honorable members thank you for the invitation to present the 2026 rule of law report to you all this evening. The rule of law is the foundation of the EU and serves as the bedrock of democracy and respect for fundamental rights across our union. This is why upholding and safeguarding the rule of law is a priority for the European Commission.
Adopted in July, this year's report takes stock of the rule of law situation in every Member State, the EU as a whole, and four enlargement countries. As the President pointed out during her State of the Union address recently, thanks to our rule of law reports, any issues are now detected early and addressed through dialogue. I am grateful for the continuous support of the Parliament in this endeavor, and in particular your committee. You've contributed with important suggestions on how to make our collective work to protect and promote the rule of law more effective. The fact that the Parliament's report was adopted earlier this year allowed us to better take its content into account in our preparations and to work towards building a more integrated annual cycle.
We are currently reflecting on a possible earlier date for the adoption of the next report, and I'm happy to discuss that further. And I'm pleased to report that just last Friday, we started our outreach to Member States, thus launching the concrete preparations of the next report earlier than we have done in the past. For this year's Rule of Law Report, for the first time, Commission services organized in-person country visits to many Member States.