Enlarging the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: Problems of Diversity and EU Instruments and Strategies

Abstract

Ten years ago justice and home affairs (JHA) did not yet even exist as a EC/EU policy-making area. Yet—after modest beginnings in the context of the Maastricht Treaty’s “Third Pillar” in 1993—the development of EU policies in the JHA area was transformed into a fundamental treaty objective by the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam on 1 May 1999, Article 2 TEU providing for the maintenance and the development of the European Union as an “area of freedom, security and justice” (AFSJ). This new integration objective was strengthened by the introduction of a range of new policy objectives, the communitarisation of asylum, immigration and other issues of the former “Third Pillar”, the incorporation of the Schengen acquis, new and more appropriate legal instruments and improved judicial control. This, and the results of the Tampere European Council of October 1999, led to a further expansion of the scope of policy-making in justice and home affairs, with dozens of new legislative acts being adopted, a considerable number of new legislative initiatives and even the establishment of new bodies—such as the prosecution agency Eurojust and the European Police College. There is no other example in the history of EC/EU integration process of an area of previously loose intergovernmental co-operation ever having made its way so quickly to the top of the Union’s political and legislative agenda.