EU: New justice and home affairs working structures
01 November 1998
Under the Amsterdam Treaty the Council is having to consider changes to its working methods especially as immigration and asylum is to move to the "first pillar" within five years and that all new measures will be agreed by the "Community method" (as community law and involving the European Parliament).
Below are extracts from the Action Plan on establishing an area of freedom, security and justice (12028/1/98, dated 10 November 1998):
"The Communitarisation of part of the field of justice and home affairs.. alters the working method of many Council working parties. Some Council working parties which under the Maastricht Treaty dealt exclusively with third pillar matters will now be dealing with those matters under the first pillar and others will in future have to apply sometimes the law of the Treaty establishing the European Community and sometimes the law of the Treaty on European Union....
..The transfer of the fields of visa, asylum and immigration policy and judicial cooperation in civil matters to Community law has no effect on the fact that these subjects will in future continue to be dealt with by the Council in its composition of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs...
...The Treaty of Amsterdam provides explicitly for a Coordinating Committee consisting of senior officials on Third-pillar matters (police cooperation and judicial cooperation in criminal matters) (Article 36 of the TEU). The Committee's mandate is clearly defined in the Treaty on European Union. For areas transferred to the first pillar (ie: the fields of immigration policy, external border controls, visa, asylum policy, the free movement of third country nationals, on the one hand, and the fields of judicial cooperation in civil law matters and other private international law issues, on the other hand), this Committee has no competence.
It is necessary to coordinate the problems in the fields of immigration, visa, external border controls, asylum policy below the level of Coreper. This work can be carried out by a Steering Committee solely competent for such matters. Establishment and definition of the terms of reference would be carried out by Coreper. It would allow for properly informed coordination in the migration field and with regard to security matters.
...Integration of the Schengen acquis into the framework of the European Union means in the first place that Schengen working groups will cease to exist and that they will be absorbed by corresponding working parties of the Council. Where necessary the existing mandates of some working parties of the Council would have to be enlarged and in cases where no corresponding working parties of the Council existed, they will have to be created in order to ensure the continued application of the provisions of the Schengen acquis and their further development.. The fact that the provisions of the Schengen acquis will not.. apply to some Member States.. has only an effect on the voting procedures in the Council, not on its composition or that of its subordinate bodies."
In summary: the Justice and Home Affairs Council continues to cover immigration and asylum and police cooperation and judicial cooperation. The K4 Committee becomes the Article 36 Committee, but a new Steering Committee will handle "first pillar issues previously handled by the K4 Committee. All 15 EU Member States will take part in these Committees and their working parties on Schengen issues.