Freedom, Security and Justice in the European Union - Implementation of the Hague Programme 2004

The European integration process has provided for the internal market, an area without internal frontiers, allowing for free movement of goods, persons, services and capital within the European Union. Complemen­tary, the Union needs mechanisms to combat the negative consequences of the open borders policy and to protect its external borders. Therefore, it was decided that also justice and home affairs cooperation should be developed at a European level.

The Hague Programme is the working programme of the European Union concerning justice and home affairs cooperation in the period 2005-2010. In the present book the contents of the Hague Programme of 2004 is ex­plained. Under the headings ‘Freedom’, ‘Security’ and ‘Jus­tice’ developments so far and future perspectives are discussed regarding subject matters such as border control, visa policy, asylum and immigration law, police cooperation and criminal law cooperation. All these policy areas are to be considered recent policy domains of the European Union.

The contributions and suggestions of the authors – all being experts in their field and coming from different countries – are to be qualified as forceful steps on the long road to a safer Europe. Policy-makers, academics, practitioners and civil servants alike will be interested in the debate and the further development of strategies to secure ‘Freedom, Securi­ty and Justice’ to the European Union and its citizens.

Jaap W. de Zwaan is Director of the Netherlands Institute of Internation­a­l Relations ‘Clingendael’ in The Hague, and Professor of the Law of the European Union at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Flora A.N.J. Goudappel is Assistant Professor of the Law of the European Union at Erasmus University Rotterdam.