Schengen Still Going Strong: Evaluation and Update

Just a few days before the Amsterdam Treaty entered into force on 1 May 1998, political agreement was reached about the way in which the Schengen acquis was to be integrated into the Treaty establishing the European Community and the Treaty on European Union. Politically, the incorporation process turned out to be sensitive. The schismatic architecture of the Treaty on European Union made it difficult to integrate elements of the Schengen acquis that had a double immigration and law enforcement aspect. Looking back on the decision-making process, it can be concluded that the Member States preserved the essentially intergovernmental characteristics of Schengen and resisted supranational management by the European Commission.
This volume contains a broad selection of issues that are related to Schengen and the wider ambit of Justice and Home Affairs cooperation in the European Union. Politicians from the inside, senior civil servants, practitioners and academics were invited to contribute to the seventh Schengen colloquium organised by the European Institute of Public Administration in Maastricht. The themes that are covered in this volume include: the challenges of a double EU-Schengen Presidency, the legal and institutional incorporation of Schengen into the EU, the impact of Schengen on justice and home affairs cooperation in the EU, the position of the associated countries and the Nordic Union, bilateral and multilateral initiatives, mutual legal assistance, Europol's role in controlling illegal immigration networks, cross-border police cooperation, the external border situation in Mitteleuropa, and national and European parliamentary control. In short, it is a book which addresses dominant topics in the development of an internal security regime within Europe.