In 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon transferred the European Union’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) into the new EU framework. The panel will discuss developments in the AFSJ since then from theoretical and empirical perspectives: new reactions to migration and asylum, the regulation of Artificial Intelligence for law enforcement purposes and the impact of Brexit. Based on these empirical examples, the panel will reconsider European integration theory with respect to this policy area.

The New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which was presented by the Commission in September 2020, is reaching the final stage of negotiations and will likely be adopted by the European elections of 2024. If adopted, this legislative package will end a 10-year-long legislative deadlock. During this time, and due to the obstacles in the legislative arena, policy developments in the field have relied mostly on alternative and non-legislative policy frames, such as administrative tools (use of EU funds and EU agencies) and the increasing externalization of migration through agreements with third countries. The Pact focuses on restricted border management measures (border procedures in the Screening and Asylum Procedures Regulations) and mainstreams the return of irregular migrants in the whole legislative package. These measures rely on cooperation with third countries, in particular neighbouring ones, and on the expansion of the safe-third country concept based on the model of the EU-Turkey Statement. In view of these developments, the paper analyses the impact of the New Pact on relationships with third countries, especially in the Mediterranean area. It focuses on the development of alternative policy frameworks that facilitate partnerships and collaborations with third countries, considering in particular the role played by far-right (populist) governments in their push for more externalization. Finally, the paper examines how the New Pact shaped the European Parliament elections of 2024 and what the electoral results mean for the future of this policy field.

While there is now a fast-growing academic literature on Brexit Studies, focusing in particular on the unfolding of the UK-EU negotiations and on the impact of the UK’s exit on specific policy fields, limited attention has been devoted to post-Brexit policy dynamics occurring within UK-EU law enforcement and judicial cooperation. More specifically, although it is now clear that the TCA has enabled cooperation to continue in this field, albeit on a reduced scale, what we currently know little about is how the UK and EU Member States are developing coping strategies to compensate for that reduction. The article proposes, therefore, to explore how the UK and EU Member States are using bilateralism to build on the TCA in order to deepen their law enforcement and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. Through a frame analysis of 24 bilateral declarations signed between the UK and Member States (2021 to 2023), the article argues that although there has been a partial disengagement of the UK from EU Justice and Home Affairs’ governance and instruments (de-EUisation), bilateralism is contributing to maintaining a close level of cooperation between law enforcement and judicial authorities, which the authors understand as a form of shallow Europeanisation. On the basis of these findings, the article offers a wider reflection about the possible direction of the external dimension of the EU law enforcement and judicial cooperation.

The Lisbon Treaty abolished the EU’s former pillar structure. The previously intergovernmental Area of Freedom, Security and Justice has since witnessed significant institutional, legal and political developments. These reveal an important paradox: despite high sovereignty and national identity costs for the Member States, integration in the AFSJ has steadily continued towards supranationalism, embracing new substantive areas, actors and governance methods. Leading theories of EU integration have been unable to explain how supranational EU institutions and agencies have succeeded in pursuing comprehensive integration in this area. In an interdisciplinary study combining law and political science, we seek to resolve this paradox by analysing the extent to which the AFSJ has transformed from an intergovernmental to a supranational policy area. As a first part of this larger study this paper seeks to reconceptualise supranationalisation as an integration theory by highlighting the integrative force of law. Building on insights of neofunctionalism we propose revised theory of supranational governance with an emphasis on the formal EU-level constraints imposed on behaviour by political actors and the stronger influence of supranational institutions on shaping policies as best characterising the developments in the AFSJ. In reconceptualising supranationalism, we draw on insights from a body of literature that suggest several relevant criteria for analysing the depth and breadth of supranational integration in specific policy fields including the scope, type and nature of EU competences, style and formal rules of decision-making, forms of oversight by supranational bodies, as well as the type and intensity of the legal measures adopted at EU level.

In December 2023, the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission reached a compromise in the Trilogue negotiations for a Regulation on Artificial Intelligence (“Articficial Intelligence Act”), based on a proposal published by the Commission in 2021 (COM(2021) 206 final). The paper specifically looks at the impact upon the use of AI in law enforcement and the AFSJ. Policing and criminal justice are not exempted from the scope of the AI Regulation, but they may use specific “backdoors” for risky AI applications that would be prohibited or restricted for other state agencies and non-state actors. With the inclusion of security agencies, the AI Act can also be seen as an attempt to overcome exceptions and opt-outs that characterised the AFSJ in policy areas such as data protection. The paper situates these “backdoors” in the context of European integration theory and of normative requirements for the use of AI in a democratic rule of law context, namely fairness, transparency and explainability.