The Limits of Mutual Trust in Europe’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: From Automatic Inter-State Cooperation to the Slow Emergence of the Individual

Summary:

This article will address the fundamental question of the extent to which automatic inter-state cooperation promoting primarily state interests and based upon blind trust between Member States is compatible with the objective of establishing an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and with the development of a European Union based upon the respect for fundamental rights.

The first part of the article will consist of an analysis of the main features of inter-state cooperation in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and analyse the specific systems of automatic cooperation established by secondary EU law in the fields of criminal, civil, and asylum law. The second part will examine the way in which automaticity and trust have been interpreted in the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, and explore the interaction between this Court and the European Court of Human Rights in the field. The third part will focus on attempts to accompany inter-state cooperation with harmonization of national law granting rights to individuals affected by such cooperation.