The article critically examines the EU’s conceptualisation of the rule of law in its enlargement practice. Two main arguments will be advanced. First, it will be argued that legality is a core element of the rule of law, and adherence to it is a fundamental characteristic of any institutional order governed by the rule of law, as evidenced in the Treaty (Article 2 TEU) and as acknowledged in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice. Secondly, it will be shown that the EU’s pre-accession process does not sufficiently address this rule of law element, to the extent that a) its main focus is alignment with the acquis, and b) changes made to domestic legislation are measured in terms of quantity and not quality. It will be demonstrated that this generates problems of legality in the candidate states, including legal inflation, instability, lack of generality of law and coherence, as well as problems of enforcement. It will be asserted that even though this is recognised by the Commission, over the years the EU has not amended its methodology, thereby failing to recognise that ensuring respect for the rule of law is not merely a process of adoption of a corpus of rules, but rather a complex process of adaptation to a particular value system. The article continues by arguing that the quality and complexity of the acquis leave considerable room for improvement, while at the same time raising questions as to its suitability as an instrument for development in the (potential) candidate countries. As a conclusion, some policy reflections will be offered on how these issues could be better addressed. Keywords: EU rule of law, legality, EU enlargement, EU acquis, quantitative approach, benchmarking.

中文翻译：

---

注意差距：欧盟扩大政策中法治概念化的合法性问题

这篇文章严格地考察了欧盟在扩大实践中对法治的概念化。将提出两个主要论点。首先，将争辩说合法性是法治的核心要素，遵守条约是任何受法治支配的体制秩序的基本特征，正如《条约》（第2条）所证明的那样，也是公认的。在法院的判例中。其次，从以下方面可以看出，欧盟的加入前程序在以下方面未能充分解决这一法治要素：a）其主要重点是与收购相吻合，b）对国内立法所做的更改以术语数量而不是质量。可以证明，这会在候选国家产生合法性问题，包括合法通货膨胀，不稳定，缺乏法律通用性和连贯性，以及执法问题。可以断言，即使委员会认可了这一点，多年来，欧盟仍未修改其方法，因此未能认识到确保尊重法治不仅仅是通过规则集的过程，而是适应特定价值体系的复杂过程。文章继续指出，收购的质量和复杂性尚有很大的改进空间，与此同时，人们质疑收购是否适合作为（潜在）候选国发展工具。结论是，将对如何更好地解决这些问题提供一些政策思考。关键字：欧盟法治，合法性，欧盟扩大，欧盟收购，定量方法，