Towards More Security? The Involvement of the National Parliaments in the Reform of the Schengen Agreements

Abstract

The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) touches upon two fundamental issues: on the one hand the national sovereignty and the State’s capacity to control and to manage its territory and its population, and on the other hand the protection of fundamental human rights and civil liberties. Thus, the balance between liberty and security is the core of the AFSJ. Scholars have argued that the lack of parliamentary accountability and control of home affairs policies has led to an insufficient standard of human protection. However, recent developments in this area bought by the treaty of Lisbon conferred to national parliaments a special role in AFSJ polices (Article 69, Title V of TFEU). They should ensure that legislative initiatives in relation to judicial cooperation in criminal matters and to police cooperation (Chaps. 4 and 5) comply with the principle of subsidiarity. The question that this paper tries to answer is to what extent the involvement of national parliaments in European policies brings a more humanitarian approach to the AFSJ? To do so, the paper relies on two theoretical concepts: that of frame and that of parliamentary scrutiny and one case study: the reform of the Schengen agreements proposed by the European Commission in September 2011. In a comparative perspective the paper analyzes how the French and the Italian parliamentarians scrutinized the reform mentioned above and what role do they play in the decision-making process.