Since the end of the Cold War, the EU has tried to accompany the so-called third wave of democratization processes in a number of countries, and has projected itself as what some scholars refer to as a 'normative power Europe'(Manners 2002). Accordingly, human rights and democratic principles have become one of the essential pillars of EU's identity both at internal and at external level (Barbé 2014, p. 395), at least as a proclamation of principles. 3 Against this background, some scholars argue that the EU can be defined as a 'democracy