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A Guide to the European Union
Justice and Home Affairs
Citizens of the EU expect to live without fear of persecution or violence wherever they may live. EU legislation in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) has been designed to address such concerns and deal with the complex issues of security, rights and freedoms, political asylum, illegal immigration, organised crime, drug smuggling and terrorism.
JHA rules also govern the way the EU’s national courts work together when people are involved in legal proceedings in more than one country. As more and more citizens take advantage of their rights to move around the EU for either business or personal reasons, the need for greater co-operation between national forces, customs services and legal systems is set to increase enormously.
The 1992 Maastricht Treaty formally recognised that the areas covered by JHA were a common concern among EU Member States and thus created a special law-making structure to handle legislation linked to these questions. This is often called the ‘third pillar’ of the EU, as opposed to the majority of traditional EU responsibilities in the ‘first pillar’ and the Common Foreign and Security Policy in the ‘second pillar’. However, this law-making structure under intergovernmental agreements remained a relatively slow and cumbersome process.
In May 1999 the Treaty of Amsterdam moved several key policy areas, including asylum and immigration policy and issues concerning co-operation between civil courts, into the EU’s normal law-making structures by introducing majority voting decisions
Fundamental Rights
The Treaty of Amsterdam has given EU citizens additional fundamental rights to tackle most forms of discrimination on the grounds of nationality, race, sex, religious belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. In December 2000, a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union was proclaimed by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Asylum Policy
A pressing issue today is how to cope in an area without internal frontiers with large numbers of immigrants and asylum seekers while respecting Europe’s humanitarian traditions of welcoming foreigners and offering a safe haven to refugees from persecution and danger. While it remains up to individual Member States to decide whether or not to grant asylum, the EU has decided on an overall policy so that asylum-seekers are treated similarly by all EU countries. The EU and Australia hold regular meetings on asylum policy at Senior Official level.
Police and Customs Co-operation
The main tools for dealing with multinational and cross-border crime are improved and closer co-operation between the EU’s national and local police forces, and between customs authorities. These are backed up by reinforcing Europol and also by enhancing police and judicial co-operation to prevent crime, increase the likelihood of the perpetrators of crime being caught and punished, and deprive criminals of the rewards of their crimes. Europol, set up in 1992, is the European law enforcement organisation whose objective is to improve the effectiveness and co-operation of the law enforcement authorities in Member States to prevent and combat terrorism, unlawful drug trafficking and other forms of international organised crime.
Combating Drugs
The EU has drawn up a coordinated strategy on drugs designed to put more emphasis on prevention and on reducing demand. It also aims to reinforce the fight against organised crime, strengthen police, customs and judicial co-operation and to collect, analyse and disseminate objective and comparable data on drugs in the EU.
More information on JHA can be found at http://www.ec.europa.eu/dgs/justice_home/index_en.htm.
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