LEGAL PROTECTION OF DEMOCRACY: EU’S EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Introduction. Democracy is the cornerstone of the European Union and the key to building peace, security, economic prosperity, competitiveness and social cohesion. However, democracy and human rights cannot be taken for granted or taken for granted; they need to be promoted and defended every day. Moreover, ordinary citizens must play a central role in the democratic process: they must be fully involved in the functioning of institutions in order to have reason to trust them. In an era of increasing geopolitical confrontation, international and regional con-flicts, and technological upheavals, European democracies are under significant internal and external pressure. That is why the EU is committed to protecting and upholding democracy, as well as to increasing the resilience and prepared-ness of societies, strengthening the rule of law for a just and well-functioning society, and promoting civic engagement and political participation, so that citizens’ ideas are at the heart of public policy-making.
Unfortunately, in Ukraine, the legal principles of democracy protection in the EU have not yet been the subject of independent scientific research, due to the considerable attention of domestic scientists to the problems of European integration and the legal principles of the functioning of the EU. To some extent, this is explained by the novelty of this issue, as well as its complex nature. Therefore, within the framework of this study, an attempt is made to start a scien-tific discourse on the causes, evolution, current state and prospects for the development of the legal principles of de-mocracy protection in the EU, as well as the importance of such principles for the development of Ukrainian statehood and the prospects for Ukraine's full membership in the EU.

Summary of the main results of the study. From the moment of the conclusion of the Maastricht Treaty until the major EU enlargement in 2004, European democracy was considered exemplary, unshakable, devoid of more or less significant internal and external threats. The first challenges to the democratic core of the EU began to be observed only when the largest wave of enlargement included ten states in this integration entity at once, eight of which had signifi-cant historical experience of existing within the socialist camp, far from the ideals of Western democracy. Therefore, the legal protection of democracy is a fairly new direction in the EU's foreign and domestic policy; it has only a five-year history, but today it has already managed to occupy a prominent place among the political spectrum of this integra-tion entity. Such a policy is systemic and planned in nature. The main policy-legal documents in this area are the Euro-pean Democracy Action Plan (2020), the Democracy Protection Package (2023), as well as the European Democracy Shield and the EU Strategy for Civil Society (2025).

Conclusions. The main emphasis in all documents on the protection of democracy in the EU is on the protec-tion of democratic elections, the information space and civil society from external threats, which naturally provokes criticism from experts and demands to expand the subject of legal regulation and pay more attention to internal threats to democracy. The EU Readiness Strategy, which is already under development, should overcome the existing short-comings. This Strategy is based on a systematic understanding of the readiness of supranational institutions, public authorities of the Member States, as well as civil society institutions and ordinary citizens to timely identify and correct-ly qualify any threats facing the EU, as well as to effectively respond to them, both independently and collectively.
A significant catalyst for the intensification of developments in the protection of democracy in Europe was Russia's aggression against Ukraine, as well as massive manifestations of external unlawful interference in the demo-cratic processes of the EU using the latest information and communication technologies. EU legislation on the protec-tion of democracy is experiencing a period of rapid development and in many aspects is unique, innovative, especially in terms of regulating artificial intelligence and the status of electronic media.

The EU's experience in the field of legal protection of democracy is of significant importance for Ukraine; the implementation of European standards in this area, on the one hand, is a guarantee of the success and irreversibility of democratic transformations within our state, and on the other hand, is a prerequisite for its further integration into the European legal space. The participation of Ukraine and its subjects in the implementation of relevant programs and strategies will allow obtaining the necessary information, organizational, and material and financial resources to contin-ue building a democratic, legal statehood of the European model and bring our state closer to membership in the EU.