Union takes first steps towards ‘an area of freedom, security and justice’

Date: 29/04/1999

By Simon Coss

BEFORE Amsterdam, progress in EU law-making in the areas of asylum, immigration and cooperation between national courts was almost imperceptible.

On 1 May it should speed up almost to a snail's pace.

Once the new treaty enters into force, legislation in these three areas will be drafted using the Union's standard 'first-pillar' procedure, with a proposal from the European Commission being accepted, amended or rejected by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.

At present, such legislation is drawn up by intergovernmental agreement under the EU's 'third pillar' and any significant initiatives must be individually ratified by all 15 of the Union's national parliaments - an extremely lengthy process.

But anyone who thinks that Amsterdam will herald a new age of high-speed decision making on immigration and asylum or that the new treaty will see national courts suddenly working hand-in-hand with each other in civil cases should think again.

When EU leaders finally emerged from their marathon talks in the Dutch capital in June 1997, they made sure that they would keep a firm grip on the framing of the Union's justice and home affairs rules in all three policy areas.

While the need for national ratification of legislation will go when asylum, immigration and cooperation in civil legal cases 'switch pillars', decisions in these areas will still have to be agreed unanimously by all 15 governments before becoming law.

In five years time, EU leaders will decide whether they want to change these procedures so that initiatives can be adopted by a qualified majority of member states. But any move to change the system would itself have to be agreed unanimously.

In addition to these constraints, the European Parliament will not be able to force amendments to draft laws in these three policy areas and the Commission will have to share its usually unique right to propose laws with national governments.

All other policy areas covered by the Union's justice and home affairs rules - such as measures to combat drug trafficking, fight organised crime, tackle terrorism and crack down on fraud - will continue to be drawn up by intergovernmental agreement.

However, despite the somewhat limited aspirations of the new treaty when it comes to translating its pledge to create 'an area of freedom, security and justice' within the Union into reality, Acting Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin said recently that she was pleased with the changes to be introduced by Amsterdam.

" I will get more space to take initiatives and to push, hopefully," she said, speaking before the 20-strong Commission announced its resignation and said it would not launch any new legislative proposals while it remained in office in a caretaker capacity.

The Swedish government has made it clear that Gradin will not be asked to serve another term as her country's Commissioner, so the first opportunity to flex the institution's new post-Amsterdam muscles will fall into the hands of her successor.

Supporters of Gradin's view of the new treaty argue that although the changes to justice and home affairs rules under Amsterdam are relatively unambitious in themselves, they do represent a first step towards a more 'communitarised' approach to lawmaking in the area.

They say that introducing changes in a field which touches on some of EU member states' most sensitive areas of national sovereignty was always going to be a slow and delicate process.