Defending Democracy: Assessing the EU's Fund-Freezing Strategy in Poland and Hungary

In response to democratic backsliding, the EU has repeatedly implemented its safeguard mechanisms on Poland and Hungary, aiming to redirect the backsliding states toward liberal democracy. However, democratic erosion persists and is even spreading to other member states. The proliferating of democratic backsliding has led to increased disruption and non-compliance within the EU's democratic processes, further weakening the EU institutions tasked with protecting EU values. This raises the question: Under what circumstances, and for what reasons, are EU safeguard mechanisms effective against democratic backsliding? Previous research have struggled to provide a definitive answer, primarily due to its reliance on theoretical frameworks that overlook contextual factors and lack a clear definition of effectiveness. This article addresses these gaps by developing a novel institutionalist approach that integrates both normative and rational factors. It also provides a clear definition of effectiveness, dimension often missing in previous studies. To assess the effectiveness of EU safeguard mechanisms, this article one of the most recent measures: the 2022 fund freeze. In 2022, the EU Commission suspended the payments under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) and the Common Provision Regulation (CPR) for both Poland and Hungary. Despite the similarities between the two cases, the countries reacted differently: Poland fully regained access to the funds, while Hungary only secured partial access, losing over a billion euros by early 2025 and still still facing frozen funds to date. To explain the divergence in outcomes, I introduce the Multivariate Safeguard Effectiveness Model (MSEM), a fuzzy set model designed to assess effectiveness. This framework enables a comparative analysis of Poland and Hungary's responses to the fund freeze, identifying the key factors that determine the success of EU safeguard mechanisms in mitigating democratic backsliding.