EU slår fast: Ungern är inte längre ett demokratiskt land

Spain slips from “full democracy” to “flawed democracy”
The number of “full democracies”” fell from 13 in 2020 to 12 in 2021, with Spain slipping into the ranks of
“flawed democracies”. Spain’s previous score of 8.12 meant that it classified as a “full democracy” only by
a narrow margin. A small deterioration in its score this year, to 7.94, was sufficient to result in a category
downgrade. The deterioration relates mainly to a weaker score for judicial independence, following
ongoing political divisions over the appointment of new magistrates to the General Council of the
Judiciary, the body that oversees the judicial system and is intended to guarantee its independence.
At present, the council is operating on a caretaker basis, as its term of office expired in 2018, and there
has been no agreement about the appointment of new judges (which need a three-fifths majority in
parliament). The longer the situation drags on, the greater the risk of the Council being undermined
and vulnerable to politicisation. More broadly, Spain’s political scene has become increasingly unsettled
in recent years, with parliamentary fragmentation, a litany of political graft scandals and rising regional
nationalism in Catalonia posing challenges to governance.