Democracy is a fragile concept. In historical terms it has not been around for too long. If we ignore the signs that it could be in danger, then like any other man-made concept, it could collapse.

That is why it is essential that it is never taken for granted, that it is nurtured and why constantly evolving concepts of governance must be rooted in a value system that people have died to protect.

Whatever Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s troll factories try to tell you, democracy is not the tyranny of the majority. That is what mob rule looks like. Democracy is majority rule with absolute protection of rights. The two are inseparable.

Corruption with impunity kills rights and is therefore incompatible with a functioning democracy.

That is why we must have an independent judiciary, a free media and freedom of speech. That is why we fight, despite the threats and despite the intimidation, to preserve democracy, the rule of law and people’s fundamental rights.

That is why the EU was born in the first place. Europe knows only too well the depths that man can sink to, and we promised that we would never allow it to happen again. That means we have to be on constant alert.

What we have witnessed (albeit to different degrees) in Malta, Poland, Romania and Hungary proves just how urgently and seriously the EU needs to act to protect rights.

We know that there is a huge gap between the rights we expect as EU citizens and the mechanisms available to ensure their protection. It is a weakness that we must address.

Our EU does not have the tools necessary to deal with the situations citizens in the Union are facing. We must address that.

People do not want more speeches and promises, they want the European Union to take action – and my job as a representative of those people is to ensure that the EU has all the tools it needs to act

And that is exactly what we are doing in the European Parliament. No more talk. Time for action.

We want to establish a Europe-wide mechanism that protects democracy, the rule of law and the fundamental rights of all citizens in Member States. It would take the form of an annual assessment with tailor-made recommendations, guidance and eventually even sanctions in every Member State. It could combine a series of existing reports such as anti-corruption reports and justice scoreboards with individual considerations per country.

Every Member State would be subject to the same level of scrutiny by an independent, expert-led team

It is not a new idea – we have already secured a majority in the European Parliament – but it is one that requires more of an impetus to move forward. This would mean that every Member State would be subject to the same level of scrutiny by an independent, expert-led team that would examine in detail the state of our Union in every country.

It will look at how our feted European values are actually being applied in practice. It would remove any element of partisanship from the equation and end the ‘whataboutism’ retort – so often the last escape route of those politicians who prefer to point fingers rather than change.

This assessment could take the form of examining legislation that infringes on people’s rights to live as they choose.

Or it could look at the gap between legislation and practice.

So, to use Malta as an example, the lack of anti-SLAPP legislation to protect the media, the institutional weaknesses for fighting corruption, this seeping culture of impunity – and more – would all be easily identified and would trigger an automatic annual system to bring about change via soft law.

In Romania, it would be able to address any flawed legislation that could weaken the fight against crime. In Germany, Belgium, Slovenia and beyond, it would equally look at the system in place, laws being proposed or passed and put forward any necessary changes too.

We are not interested in going after one country, we want to change the en-tire system.

We would be removing the accusations of this being somehow politically motivated and destroying the false arguments of people like Joseph Muscat and Jarosław Kaczyński, who show their true colours as they try to frame any action to protect rights as an attack against themselves.

Most people are able to see through the same tired tactics they use, but many are equally weary, even suspicious, of being ‘singled out by Brussels’. Putting this mechanism in place addresses all these populist arguments.

We must act and we must act soon. We want this to happen by the end of this year at the latest – to do otherwise would be putting the entire European project at risk and testing people’s faith in a united Europe.

Roberta Metsola is a Nationalist Party MEP.