The European Union may start punishing rule-of-law offenders this year with a new sanctions tool that could see countries lose out on billions of euros, a timetable far quicker than earlier expectations.
Vera Jourova, the European Commission vice president in charge of values, is helping draft guidelines for how the EU will implement new powers to penalize countries that don’t uphold the bloc’s democratic standards. One option will be to freeze funds from the EU’s 1.8 trillion-euro ($2.2 trillion) stimulus package before they’ve been disbursed.
