The use of Article 7 TEU against Poland and Hungary has shown that the EU is not toothless when Member States openly violate its values. Actually, to resort to this incisive action crowns a long process of equipping the EU with rule of law devices: the EU now owns an arsenal of tools to combat Member States defiance in both law-making and its enforcement, regardless of the law’s content and provenance. The development and use of these tools is shaping the definition of the rule of law in the EU, characterizes the EU, primarily, as a rule of law actor. This article demonstrates that the EU rule of law is anchored to a “thin” conceptualization of the ideal.