Our
approach in the inquiry
5. Within a field as broad as "justice and home
affairs" there is at any given moment a multitude of policy
initiatives proceeding at various rates of progress, and with
varying chances of being finally adopted and implemented, through
the institutions of the EU and its Member States. In this report
we have not attempted a comprehensive survey of these. Instead
we have tried simply to take a 'snapshot' of a few significant
issues. We are mindful that our colleagues on the House of Commons
European Scrutiny Committee and on Sub-Committees F (Home Affairs)
and E (Law and Institutions) of the House of Lords European Union
Committee produce regular reports looking in detail at particular
EU proposals. We have not sought to duplicate the valuable work
done by those committees. (However, we make some comments later
in this report on gaps in the overall level of scrutiny given
by Westminster to EU issues in the JHA field, and how those gaps
might be filled.)
6. What we have
aimed to do is to look at selected issues from the perspective
of the actual challenges faced by EU countries, particularly those
of cross-border crime and border control. We have then attempted
to assess the current and future effectiveness of EU action in
meeting those challenges. Throughout our evidence sessions, we
consistently asked our witnesses "How big is the problem?
What's the evidence that action x , y
or z is necessary?"
7. One consistent
theme emerging from the responses has been that policy-makers
often lack sufficient information about the practical problems
which action at EU level ought to be aimed at tackling. In our
view, policy initiatives at EU level should only be pursued if
there is a solid evidence-base that they are likely to make a
real practical difference to the effectiveness with which the
common challenges facing EU Member States in the JHA field can
be tackled. If what is being contemplated is a change to the decision-making
processes of the EU itself—such as abandoning the current
requirement that decisions on policing, legal migration and judicial
co-operation on criminal matters should be made on the basis of
unanimity amongst Member States—it is all the more important
that a proper case should be made out for the practical benefits
to be brought by such changes.
8. Throughout
this report, therefore, we have tried to set the current debates
about policy and institutional change against the test of problem-based
and evidence-based action. However, we recognise also the danger
that if action is not taken in certain areas through the central
EU institutions, groups of individual Member States may collaborate
amongst themselves in ad hoc arrangements, which
then become adopted formally by the EU, as is in process of happening
with the Prüm Treaty. We recognise that future UK governments
may have to weigh the disadvantages of engaging with initiatives
they deem to be insufficiently evidence-based against those of
being excluded from key negotiations on what may ultimately be
adopted as EU policy.
9. In the next section of the report, we provide
some information about the prevalence of crime across the EU and
about recent migration trends. We then summarise the current and
proposed future arrangements for EU decision-making in the JHA
field. In the remainder of the report, we consider recent EU policy
responses to the challenges posed by crime and migration.
