Adrián Vázquez MEP: Commission Report Puts Spain’s Rule of Law on a Par with Hungary’s

Following this week’s release of the European Commission’s Rule of Law Report (2026) along with two rulings by the European Union’s Court of Justice on the amnesty law, it may seem that justice has once again moved to the center of political debate. Yet the reality is that the bond between justice and politics has been the subject of persistent contention in recent years, and its current prominence is not a favorable sign.

Adrián Vázquez Lázara, MEP and vice-president of the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs, is acutely aware of the European dimension of these controversies. For many years he has monitored discussions in Brussels about judicial independence, the rule of law, and how Spain’s system fits within the EU framework.

In this interview with Agenda Pública, Vázquez argued that the Government “has done absolutely none of what was asked of it last year” in areas such as anti-corruption efforts, safeguarding judicial independence, and respect for judges. He also critiques the European resolutions on amnesty, defends the separation of powers, and calls for the “total disconnection of the Attorney General’s Office from the Executive,” which he regards as an urgent reform. After lamenting the “colonization of institutions” and assaults on judges, he cautions that the “filters” inherent to the separation of powers are being removed. He concludes by stating that “this is how any authoritarian State begins.”
 

What’s your assessment of the EU Rule of Law Report from this year?

The first thing to understand is that the report is an annual review of the rule of law, which is a very broad concept.

Unfortunately, all citizens in Spain now know what that means – or at least they have a fair idea. Ten years ago, no one was interested in the topic. That shows that there’s a problem, obviously.

The Commission’s report should be compared with previous annual reports and also put in the context of other countries. You can’t understand if you don’t compare.

What we’ve seen in the last five years, and especially the last two, are reports that – albeit in the language of Brussels – are devastating. Not only do they ask for reforms around judicial independence, or in the case of Spain on the situation of the State Attorney General and the General Council of the Judiciary, but they use language that you have to know how to interpret. As regards reforms of the CGPJ or problems of corruption, for example, they use very broad terms by Brussels standards.

“What we’ve seen in the last five years, and especially the last two, are reports that – albeit in the language of Brussels – are devastating”

It must be understood that Brussels isn’t Europe’s policeman, but it does have to warn impartially about what’s happening in each Member State. And this report today puts us on par with Hungary. Many media outlets in the Brussels bubble said yesterday that the two worst reports in terms of corruption were those of Hungary and Spain.

More specifically, in this comparison of corruption, what worries you most?

I think that the headline of this report is that absolutely nothing has been done that was requested last year. That’s the headline.

Obviously, the Commission also doesn’t have the capacity to intervene very effectively in the Member States, because that’s not its job. But it has been asking the Government of Spain for some time to make progress in the fight against corruption, in judicial independence, and above all as regards the Judiciary and the media.

“The Commission also doesn’t have the capacity to intervene very effectively in the Member States, because that’s not its job”

In three paragraphs it clearly states that there’s been no improvement. In some cases, it talks about a minor improvement, for example with respect to the State Attorney General, but this simply refers to a legislative proposal that hasn’t passed either Congress or the Senate.

We know it’s impossible for that to move ahead, because the Government doesn’t have a legislative majority. The European Commission also knows that. Therefore, my headline would be: “You’ve done absolutely nothing about what was asked of you last year.”

The other big development in this area is the two Court of Justice rulings on amnesty. The Partido Popular has positioned itself by legally accepting the sentences, although its political stance remains at odds. How do you evaluate this?

First, you must understand that what the CJEU did was issue a preliminary ruling. In other words, it limited itself to clarifying a doubt raised by a Spanish court regarding the European standard. It did not assess the amnesty law as a whole, nor did it determine whether it aligns with Spanish legality – no matter how many outlets present it otherwise.

Second, this ruling is not the final word. National courts still hold the power to apply national law and decide whether it applies to a given case.

“The CJEU hasn’t assessed the amnesty law as a whole, nor has it resolved whether it’s compatible with Spanish legality”

That’s part of the entire process surrounding this amnesty law, which appears tailor-made to keep a man in power with seven votes, and where the Court of Justice has avoided intruding. But it’s also true that two other questions about possible rule-of-law violations aren’t being addressed.

The decisions we’ve received refer to the Court of Auditors’ preliminary ruling on embezzlement, and to the Directive on Terrorism affecting the CDR committees. Two other questions with a far greater impact on the scope of the rule of law remain unaddressed.

I’m not saying they will advance, nor that they will head in a different direction. The only thing I’m saying is that they have issued an opinion that we fully respect.

We’re not like other parties that point fingers and accuse judges. We show respect. But on a personal note, I know the EU Court of Justice well, having heard from it every year as a former chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs, and as a current member, and there’s a certain slip when it comes to judging what makes a government pro-European or not pro-European.

That kind of case-by-case interpretation, depending on the government in each Member State, is going to age poorly.
 

In your political career, the relationship with Catalunya, the amnesty, and the independence movement has been notably intense. Some interpretations argue that the amnesty could ultimately benefit the PP by paving the way for a future understanding with Junts, which some see as inevitable. What’s your take on this reading?

The only potential point of convergence between the PP and any other Spanish party is a commitment to the Constitution and the laws we have chosen for ourselves. If that respect doesn’t exist, there can be no meeting.

“The only possible point of encounter between the PP and any other Spanish party is respect for the Constitution and the laws that we have given ourselves”

If that exists, then electoral majorities are decided by the voters. A serious, responsible political party with a “State and country” mindset must work with a clear understanding of what the people decide and what they vote for, but with a red line: respect for the Constitution.

How should the relationship between the Executive and the Judiciary be managed?

I don’t think it should be managed at all. What must happen is a strict respect for the separation of powers. The Legislature has its powers, the Executive its own, and the Judiciary its own. They are connected, but if the Executive refuses to respect judicial decisions, we risk a drift in which the separation of powers—the cornerstone of any democratic state—begins to falter.

If the opposite interpretation takes hold—that there is a judiciary that blocks the Legislature and Executive—then I’d ask what unifying interests run through the entire Spanish judiciary. Do all judges and prosecutors share the same views? Do they all have a political agenda?

Take, for example, the latest cases involving the President’s circle. In the case of his brother, the Provincial Court of Badajoz ruled unanimously. Now the Provincial Court of Madrid has likewise issued unanimous indications of possible crimes in the case of the President’s wife, for having exploited her husband’s position.

There is a segment of the press—and this is the most troubling part because it’s what the ruling party is trying to push—that claims all the state’s judicial bodies are aligned against the Government.

Is that possible? Is it viable? Is it credible? Or is there instead a motive on the part of the Executive to control and direct accusations? By the way, that is precisely what the Rule of Law Report notes: a sharp rise in complaints from all judicial associations about attempts to influence their decisions.

Could there be a specific judge with an agenda? Certainly. But in many cases there is unanimity or a broad consensus in legally sound views about the possible application of the amnesty… You can’t expect people to believe there’s a political agenda behind every decision.

“The Rule of Law Report notes a huge increase in complaints from all judicial associations due to pressures to influence their decisions”

There is no clear handle to grasp the situation, and the Commission hasn’t bought into that narrative, either. In fact, one of the report’s most significant implications is the rising concern about these accusations and the surge in complaints from judicial associations about interference from the Executive in their work.
 

In Agenda Pública we published an article analyzing the link between citizens’ ideologies and trust in justice. In Spain, people with a more conservative outlook tended to trust the judiciary more. But this pattern isn’t identical across all countries: for instance in Austria or Germany, those leaning left express greater confidence. Does this phenomenon exist in other nations, or is it more characteristic of Spain?

That question alone, to me, shows how the Government has managed to inject ideological language into justice. Even those in the media get swept up in it, as we attempt to label the judiciary with a particular ideology. That’s the starting point.

I’m not referring to judges’ personal ideologies, but to how the public perceives them. This topic has appeared in European Social Survey questionnaires since 2002.

Before that, public debate about whether judges were on one side or another didn’t exist. Once you begin to describe judges as right- or left-leaning, you start eroding judicial independence. When a decision doesn’t suit you, you claim the judge is right-wing or left-wing. This is how you seep into the system and undermine the rule of law.

If this is fomented by the Executive or by the Prime Minister, we are already witnessing a dangerous drift. It’s as if I were asked whether I think the EU Court of Justice is left-leaning because of its stance on amnesty. That isn’t how I view it. It’s a court that, to me, has no ideology. Its primary role is to apply the law, be it the Civil Code, the Penal Code, or a related regulation.

Turning the debate toward the ideology of the Judiciary marks the start of a system’s deterioration.

Again, the fact that this has become a public debate is what endangers the system. The debate reached this scale because a Prime Minister decided to bring it to public discourse. Nothing like this had ever occurred before.

“Taking the debate to the ideology of the Judiciary is the start of the deterioration of the system”

In some Eastern countries there is a contrasting view, since many of their judges came from the communist system and were integrated into the democratic order. Those judges were appointed by a communist regime. That’s the discussion from the opposite direction.

In Spain, something similar could have been argued in the 1980s due to the Francoist legacy. But a long time has passed, and the judicial system has undergone a full renewal.

For me, the mere act of opening this debate is itself dangerous. People don’t grasp how perilous it is.
 

You mentioned that Spain hasn’t implemented any of the European Commission’s recommendations from the previous year. If you could adopt just one measure to ensure the next report shows progress, which would you choose?

If I had to pick only one, I would advocate for completely severing the Attorney General’s Office from the Executive. The reason is straightforward: in virtually all corruption scandals surrounding Mr. Sánchez’s inner circle, the Prosecutor’s Office has lost its credibility.

Why? Because it has pursued a political line, even in cases where an entire court had reached unanimous conclusions. They have tarnished the reputation of the State Attorney General’s Office.

“The first thing I’d do would be to take from the Executive the power to choose the State Attorney General, because that’s absolutely rotting the system”

We’ve seen the first-ever State Attorney General be disqualified and definitively convicted. So, in my view, the initial step would be to strip the Executive of the power to appoint the State Attorney General, because that power is corroding the system.

I’d pursue many other changes as well, but that would be the first.

So this is a real concern for public trust in the system?

Of course. I’ll return to your earlier question about whether judges are right- or left-leaning, and how citizens’ political leanings affect trust. Ultimately, those perceptions breed doubt toward the judicial system.

If you breed doubt and distrust about the judiciary in a democracy, then everything begins to falter. We must recognize: this is the last frontier—the mechanism that allows us to live under a framework of mutually respected rules we’ve agreed upon.

“If you sow doubts and distrust about the judicial system in a democracy, then everything starts to wobble”

If you decide to bypass those rules to cling to power for four years, or if you suspect that your close associates, your wife, or your brother could benefit from your position, or if you colonize institutions like the CIS or Televisión Española—an issue highlighted in the Rule of Law Report where serious concerns are raised about the editorial direction of public radio and television—and if you also attack the judges… You are removing all the safeguards that ensure balance among the three powers.

That marks the beginning of any authoritarian State. That’s how it starts.

Thank you very much.