Taming the Third Pillar. Improving the management of Justice and Home Affairs co-operation in the EU

Recent titles from the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA):
Taming the Third Pillar. Improving the management of justice and home affairs co-operation in the EU:
The field of justice and home affairs co-operation is a relatively new policy area within the EU. While it has developed under the hazardous conditions of an intergovernmental governance system, it has tried to strip itself of the features formerly characteristic of the Trevi era, such as the lack of institutional integration, the absence of a formal decisionmaking system, and the total lack of accountability.

Four years after the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty, however, it seems that there have been difficulties in achieving more efficiency in the domain of justice and home affairs co-operation. Despite the changes that have been introduced in the Amsterdam Treaty, there is still no institutional driving-mechanism. From a management perspective there are other weaknesses, such as the fact that integration proceeds at multiple speeds; the overburdening of the decision-making system by bureaucracy and time-consuming briefing and consultation procedures; the domination of the decision-making process by the unanimity requirement; the tendency to agree on soft legal instruments which are not legally binding; the lack of any tangible implementation; and minimal standards of transparency and accountability. All of this is made more complex by the existence of a rather fluid and unpredictable policy-making process, which is defined by the Member States and consolidated within horizontal policy-networks between national ministries.

In order to arrive at a better management of justice and home affairs co-operation, it may be necessary to identify concrete bottlenecks in the decision-making system and to pursue a more logical distribution of responsibilities between national administrations and the European Institutions. As well as providing an analysis of current managerial deficiencies, the book deals with suggestions for improvement in more detail.

Boer, Monica den
Taming the Third Pillar. Improving the management of justice and home affairs co-operation in the EU
Current European Issues
EIPA, 1998
ISBN: 90-6779-118-0
Price: 15 NLG