How the EU is watching you: the rise of Europe’s surveillance state

New research from Open Europe warns that the Lisbon Treaty will help accelerate moves towards an EU surveillance state.

As well as measures on asylum and immigration policy, EU ministers and the European Commission are currently negotiating a raft of controversial new proposals, which are set to radically increase the EU’s role in policing, criminal, and security matters. EU leaders hope to reach formal agreement on many controversial new initiatives by the end of the year.

The UK Government’s claim that under Lisbon the UK will maintain independence and can ‘pick and choose’ which justice and home affairs policies it opts into is a smokescreen. In practice, the UK has often been a key driver of policy, and has in some instances even exported domestic initiatives to the rest of the EU, particularly those that increase the power of the state over the individual.