European area of justice

• Author: Ina Raluca Tomescu
• Position: Constantin Brâncusi University of Tg-Jiu
• Pages: 304-314

EUROPEAN AREA OF JUSTICE

Assistant professor Ina Raluca TOMESCU

„Constantin Brâncuşi”

University of Tg-Jiu

ina.tomescu@gmail.com

Abstract: European area aims to different fields of major importance for the functioning of

our societies, while aimed at ensuring the free movement of persons and the protection of citizens’

fundamental rights, but also at solving issues of immigration and asylum, organizing judicial

cooperation in civil and criminal matters within the European Union, the fight against crime and

terrorism, as well as the management of common borders of the Union. "The European Union is an

area of freedom, security and justice with respect for fundamental rights and for different legal

systems and judicial traditions of the Member States"

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.

Key-words: cooperation, justice, security.

1. European cooperation in JAI plan

European cooperation in justice and home affairs is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Following a number of ad-hoc partnerships, such as the TREVI group of police chiefs later

incorporated into the Single European Act, concrete arrangements were provided in the main by the

Schengen Agreement of 1985, the Convention of 1990 concerning the application of the Schengen

Agreement and the 1999 Europol Convention. It was only the Maastricht Treaty (1993), though,

which first introduced cooperation in the area of justice and home affairs, with the creation of the

“third pylon”.

Article 29 of the Treaty establishes a fundamental objective in the sense that, subject to

Community competence, the European Union has to offer citizens a high level of safety within an

area of freedom, security and justice by developing a common action among Member States in the

fields of police and judicial cooperation, in criminal matters and by preventing and combating

racism and xenophobia.

This objective is achieved by preventing and combating organized crime or other type and in

particular terrorism, human beings trafficking and crimes against children, illicit drug trafficking

and illicit arms trafficking, corruption and fraud, through:

- closer cooperation between police forces, customs authorities and other competent

authorities from Member States both directly and through Europol, according to art. 30 and 31 of

the Treaty;

- Closer cooperation between competent judicial authorities and other authorities, including

the European Judicial Cooperation Unit (Eurojust), in accordance with Art. 31 and 32, creating

Eurojust was set in the Presidency Conclusions of the European Council from Tampere, between

15-16 October 1999.

- Approximation, where necessary, of rules on criminal matters of Member States in

accordance with Art. 31 points. e)

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Maastricht informal cooperation rests on justice and home affairs until then on a proper legal

basis, although if one which avoids the institutions of European Community in favour of an

approach from state to state known as "the third pylon” of the European Union. The third pylon

covered nine issues of what was defined as "common interest". These were: asylum policy, rules

governing immigration and external border control in the Union, immigration, combating drug

addiction, international fraud, judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters, customs

cooperation and police cooperation to prevent terrorism, drug trafficking and other serious forms of

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Article 61, paragraph 1 from the Lisbon Treaty.

2

Octavian Manolache, Tratat de drept comunitar, Ed. C H Beck, Bucureşti, 2006, p. 517.