Progress and Obstacles in the Area of Justice and Home Affairs in an Enlarging Europe

This paper assesses the legislative achievements made so far in the objectives set by the Amsterdam Treaty and the Tampere European Council. It explores why a number of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) policy areas have experienced a greater degree of development or convergence than others. The road to establish a genuine area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) is still a long one. The widely held view of these issues as matters of national sovereignty continues to create obstacles to progress in this area. The legislative progress attained so far shows the difficulties of arriving at European policies on, immigration and asylum, as well as the rights of third-country nationals. A low level of convergence and progress towards issues related to freedom in these three areas can be appreciated by looking at the progress of the Tampere scoreboard. Higher levels of trust, flexibility, co-ordination and efficiency, in terms of cost and rapidity of response, are required to overcome these tensions. The right balance between freedom, security and justice needs to be ensured. Security and law enforcement policies need to be developed with freedom as the point of departure. A danger of the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks and the current preoccupation with undocumented / illegal immigration is that a pattern may be established that leads to overly zealous security policies for European society, with adverse effects on the internal cohesion of Europe. In particular, certain minority groups may feel that they are subject to excessive attention by security forces. In addition, it is also perceived that the terrorist attacks in the USA have radically changed perceptions of security in the EU. Undoubtedly, these attacks have provided a new impetus for the development of the AFSJ. The member statesu0092 governments, security agencies and public opinion have been made dramatically aware of the extent to which international forms of crime threaten traditional internal security. The AFSJ provides the perf