Security and the Two-Level Game: The Treaty of Prüm, the EU and the Management of Threats. CEPS Working Documents No. 234, 1 January 2006 (original) (raw)
Related papers
In: Holzhacker, Ronald and Paul Luif (eds): Freedom, Security and Justice after Lisbon: Internal and External Dimensions of Increased Cooperation in the European Union. New York: Springer, 101-118.
Taking the Prüm Process as an example, this chapter investigates the effects of enhanced cooperation within Europe as well as with the United States (US) in combating serious crime. The Prüm Process started as an intergovernmental data-sharing initiative of seven EU member states in 2005, before the key provisions of the founding Treaty were incorporated into EU law in 2007. It also induced some third countries, in particular the US, to strive for similar “Prüm-like” treaties — at times with considerable pressure, as this chapter’s case study on the Austrian-US negotiations demonstrates. The chapter argues that the Prüm process reflects both the opportunities and challenges of enhanced cooperation in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. In terms of opportunities, the Prüm process has deepened EU cooperation in an area that was not yet regulated by EU law. Enhancing cooperation in combating serious crime by mutually opening up national databases would not have been possible in the EU framework given that some countries, notably the UK, blocked it. The signing of the Prüm Treaty outside the EU’s legal framework has allowed the integration-willing member states to demonstrate the functional benefits of the initiative and to weaken the resistance of the cooperation-reluctant member states. In terms of challenges, however, criticism concerning the Prüm process’ legitimacy and acceptability was not silenced, even after the incorporation of the key provisions into EU law. Issues of privacy and data protection were intensively negotiated, in particular in the EU-US cooperation triggered by the Prüm Process.
Performing the Union: The Prüm Decision and the European dream
2012
In 2005, seven European countries signed the so-called Prüm Treaty to increase transnational collaboration in combating international crime, terrorism and illegal immigration. Three years later, the Treaty was adopted into EU law. EU member countries were now obliged to have systems in place to allow authorities of other member states access to nationally held data on DNA, fingerprints, and vehicles by August 2011. In this paper, we discuss the conditions of possibility for the Prüm network to emerge, and argue that rather than a linear ascent towards technological and political convergence and harmonisation, the (hi)story of Prüm is heterogeneous and halting. This is reflected also in the early stages of implementing the Prüm Decision which has proven to be more challenging than it was hoped by the drivers of the Prüm process. In this sense, the Prüm network sits uncomfortably with success stories of forensic science (many of which served the goal of justifying the expansion of technological and surveillance systems). Instead of telling a story of heroic science, the story of Prüm articulates the European dream: one in which goods, services, and people live and travel freely and securely.
Governing Internal Security in the European Union
The Maastricht treaty on the European Union (EU) erected a three-pillar edifice of European integration whose third pillar comprised various forms of cooperation in justice and home affairs. Many practices had existed much before 1992 and their inclusion into the new organization was a kind of cosmetic surgery. That face-lifting of cooperation in justice and home affairs had obvious consequences for the nature of the third pillar and the overall balance of EU policies. The third pillar was a strictly intergovernmental area where the EU members kept their sovereign right to decide upon their home affairs and judicial cooperation, as well as regulate migration flows and safeguard their national borders. EC institutions did not have much say on those matters, and any progress of cooperation depended on consensus between the members. The Maastricht treaty established legal/formal and institutional grounds for EU cooperation in managing internal security through intergovernmental consultations regarding the movement of persons in the EU, and concomitant flanking measures in the fields of police and judicial cooperation. EU politics of internal security was formally strengthened in the Amsterdam Treaty, and practically through incorporation of acquis Schengen into the legal framework of the Union. The gradual widening of the Schengen area, the abolition of controls at internal borders and the reinforcement of flanking measures, especially at external borders, allowed the EU to set up a comprehensive and relatively efficient system of internal security. Although the Amsterdam treaty, reforming the EU, intended to improve the fluctuation of numerous policy fields, its provisions concerning justice and home affairs were controversial. Firstly, a relatively simple and transparent structure of third-pillar cooperation was replaced by a multilevel asymmetrical and entangled cross-pillar construction in an "area of freedom, security and justice." Provisions relating to immigration, visas, asylum and other policies related to free movement of persons were transferred to the Community pillar. The third pillar was reduced to police and criminal justice cooperation. The Schengen acquis was inserted into the framework of the EU although its provisions were granted a special autonomy. Discussions about the reform of the EU have dominated a general political and theoretical discourse on European integration at the threshold of the 21st century. A host of supranational institutions and intergovernmental bodies along with politicians and government officials from the EU members have perseveringly deliberated upon the most suitable and desirable shape of a future EU. The 2007 Lisbon treaty ended the long and tortuous trip to a new arrangement for European integration although its fate is still undecided. Moreover, the formal abolition of the pillar structure was partially undermined by special provisions concerning, first of all, internal security matters, especially police cooperation and criminal justice. The process of constitutionalisation of the EU came amidst a great global security debate. The symbolic and political impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, when Western civilization lost the feeling of stability and entered a new stage: a ‘war on terror,' brought about new challenges for the EU in the area of security. Transnational processes, in which the EU and its Communities have, for decades, assumed a leading and creative role, changed the traditional perception and understanding of security. One of the objectives of European integration has been to make inhabitants of the continent feel safer and more confident in the institutions of public life. The challenge of transnational threats such as terrorism, cross-border organized crime, large-scale migrations, asymmetrical conflicts or WMD proliferation had also to be met by the European states. Confronted for decades with such disquieting events and phenomena, the Europeans managed to work out, within the framework of European integration processes, certain arrangements allowing for more effective and long-term cooperation in preventing and combating the major threats to European security.