Report : The Justice and Home Affairs External Dimension

The Justice and Home Affairs External Dimension – Doctoral Workshop – LSE – 21 September 2007 - Report

Although the Justice and Home Affairs External Dimension (JHAE) has given rise to a growing number of policy documents in recent years, in academia the topic remains largely understudied. This lack of attention stems from the fact that it sits uneasily between two distinct research communities, on the one hand Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) and the other hand, European Foreign Policy (EFP). A further reason is the prevailing view that JHA is first and foremost an internal EU policy, which pursues internal policy objectives. Considering the political salience of the question, it is startling that EFP analysts have made little attempts to integrate the findings of the flourishing literature on JHA. This is all the more surprising given the fact that the EU’s internal security dimension now encompasses a number of issues, such as the fight against terrorism, border management, irregular migration and the fight against organized crime, that impinge directly upon the EU’s relations with third countries. Eventually, the development of JHA has endowed the EU with new policy tools that can be used in the area of external relations, such as the conclusion of agreements by Frontex, Europol and Eurojust.

This developments points to the timely convening of the Doctoral Workshop the JHA External Dimension which took place at the London School of Economics on 21 September 2007. The workshop was an attempt to bridge the gap between the two research communities by bringing together PhD students and senior academics from both fields to present theoretical and empirical contributions on this issue. Sponsored by the Challenge network, EU-Consent, the London School of Economicsand Fornet, the workshop was introduced by Karen Smith (London School of Economics) and Sandra Lavenex (University of Lucerne) who both welcomed the students’ initiative of organizing a workshop on such a topical subject.

Professor Smith warned that the apparent dynamic of JHAE, which manifests itself through a profusion of policy papers and grand strategies, risks diverting energy from the very substance of the policy with the unfortunate result of policy initiatives becoming dead letters. In the same vein, Professor Lavenex argued that the proliferation of policy strategies was a fog masking what was really significant. She identified the major theoretical and empirical challenges faced by scholars working in this domain, and concluded with a plea for constituting a research community that studies JHAE from an inductive perspective.

The first panel of the day was devoted to the challenging task of theorizing and conceptualizing JHAE. The presenters concurred that the multi-faceted character and the relative novelty of the phenomenon constitute major impediments to ‘theorization’. Sarah Wolff (LSE) started by presenting a paper written together with Nicole Wichmann (University of Lucerne) and Gregory Mounier (University of Reading). Providing a comprehensive overview of the incremental institutional development of JHAE, as well as a thematic overview, it then considered the input perspective, and argued that neo-institutionalism was the most suitable for explaining the policy changes leading to the development of JHAE. Lastly, turning to the outputs of JHAE the article investigated how JHAE materializes in relation with third countries. By distinguishing between three dimensions of governance, polity, politics and policy,Daniel Wunderlich (University of Sheffield) provided a contribution to the development of the concept of external governance. Arguing that the study of the politics dimension of external governance merits the most attention since it is where networks for policy implementation emerge, Wunderlich demonstrated that policy implementation is a densely populated organizational field, in which actors are bound by complex interdependence. Lastly, Patryk Pawlak (EUI Florence) discussed the phenomenon of cross-pillarization between JHA and CFSP policies. Providing a useful conceptualization of different forms of cross-pillar policy making in the EU, it insisted upon the fact that the latter vary according to the context. He identified micro and macro, internal and external, legal and policy-making expressions of cross-pillarization. By drawing from EU’s administrative structure’s studies and from Christiansen’s work on inter- and intra- institutional politics, Pawlack argued that processes of cross-pillarization can be jeopardized by bureaucratic turf wars over ideologies and resources. Such conflicts were illustrated by the cases of the elaboration of the 2005 Strategy for the External Dimension of JHA and the PNR Agreement. This led Pawlak to conclude that JHAE could be both hijacker and hostage of the cross-pillarization process. The discussants, Thierry Balzacq (University of Leuven) and Sandra Lavenex emphasized the need to open the field of research and bring other theoretical perspectives in order to provide a comprehensive explanation of the gradually changing relations between JHA and Foreign Policy as a result of the emergence of JHAE.

The second panel focused on the Western Balkans and on the links between JHAE, enlargement and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). Based on a case study of the European police mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUPM), Gregory Mounier (University of Reading) argued that ESDP civilian crisis management and in particular the ESDP police and border management missions share many similarities with JHAE. The two policies were launched simultaneously: they were driven by the same triggering factors – the new post-Cold War security environment and the resulting internal-external security nexus–, and they share institutional and functional similarities. The security actors that are involved in ‘constructing’ the external dimension of the third pillar, i.e. police officers, judges and border guards working in embassies or as Europol and Eurojust liaison officers, are often the same persons sent abroad to work for ESDP police and rule of law missions. In addition their behaviour tends to be identical regardless of the context in which they operate (Civilian Crisis Management or JHAE). This led Mounier to argue that both policies share a functional frame, which translates into a shared willingness to protect the EU’s internal security regime by tackling threats abroad. This is principally perceptible in the systematic recourse to security sector reform (SSR) activities in both domains. In the second paper, Florian Trauner (HIS Wien) looked at the ways in which the EU’s pre-accession strategy has affected the political processes and structures in JHA in Croatia and Macedonia. Relying on Schimmelfenning and Sedelmeier’s work on the Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe he underlined the importance of rational cost, bargaining and rewards for driving the JHA rule transfer in the Western Balkans. His main argument was that although the prospect of an eventual EU membership can bear significant transformation in the Western Balkans countries, the adoption of EU rules could be enhanced if the EU was to adopt a new visa regime vis-à-visthe countries as a ‘new reward’. In particular this would be an incentive for them to fulfill conditionality requirements in the field of JHA. The discussants, Wyn Rees (University of Nottingham) and Paul Luif (IHS Wien) stressed the general lack of empirical studies in JHAE and hence welcomed the contributions made by these two studies.

The third panel dealt with JHAE in relations with the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) countries. The first presentation by Lili di Puppo (European Viadrina University, Frankfurt a.O.) highlighted the ambiguities and limitations of the EU’s attempt to project its internal security policies in Georgia. The paper depicted how the EU combines strategic and normative objectives in its policy, and stressed the dilemmas inherent in this approach. The paper constituted a provoking empirical contribution to the debate on the nature of the EU’s power. Sarah Wolff (London School of Economics) dealt with the border management regime that is currently in place in the Mediterranean, with some insight from a case study on Spanish-Moroccan cooperation. Internal and external variables were put forward to explain specific features of the EU’s border management policy. On the internal side, the lack of commitment by the member states to the principles of burden sharing and solidarity and the chaotic process of institutionalization of border management through Frontex points to prevailing national interests and rationalist calculations. On the external side, it is shown that border management in the Mediterranean is dependent upon the cooperation of third countries, and that some partners such as Morocco have tried to influence EU’s agenda thanks to this interdependency. Eventually Wolff pointed to the ethical challenges of exporting surveillance technologies to authoritarian countries. Lastly, Nicole Wichmann (University of Lucerne) developed the argument that JHAE is not a policy per se but a composite policy consisting of one macro and a number of sectoral policies. She argued that the composite nature of JHA impedes the EU’s capacity to narrow the Capability-Expectations-Gap (CEG), which allegedly exists in relations with the ENP countries. She then attempts to evaluate the contribution of JHAE to narrowing the CEG in the sectors of anti-terrorism, drugs, corruption and justice reform. The ensuing discussion, opened by Karen Smith (LSE) and Wyn Rees (University of Nottingham) stressed the fact that the EU lacks a policy towards the Southern Caucasus as well as the general confusion and incoherence that seems to characterize the EU’s approach towards the ENP countries. The analysis of border management in the Mediterranean confirmed this finding, but it is important to emphasise that incoherence does not result from unclear objectives and aims; it rather owes to the prevailing logic of diversity among the member states. With respect to the last paper the discussions underlined the need to take the endeavour of ‘measuring’ the CEG further, so that one can get a better idea of what means and tools JHAE adds to EU’s external action.

The last panel of the workshop was dedicated to the EU’s anti-terrorism policy as well as to the transatlantic dimension. The first presentation by Christine Otsver (University of Munich) engaged with the question of whether a transatlantic approach to democracy promotion is emerging or not. In her presentation she compared the democracy promotion policies of the EU and the US with respect to the policy objectives, the tools and priorities, the agencies and frameworks and the spending. The message of the paper is that the differences are manifold and that convergence is still a distant prospect. Javier Argomaniz (University of Nottingham) concentrated on the question of the Passenger Names Record, and the way in which this issue has influenced the transatlantic relationship. Argomaniz claimed that in the relation with the US the EU is a norms receiver, not a norms exporter, which means that it internalises the US’ internal security policies. On the whole, the US constitutes an interesting contrast case to JHAE in the relations with the Western Balkans and the ENP, two settings in which the relations are tilted in favour of the EU. Mara Wesseling (EIPA Maastricht) shed light on some of the coordination issues that are posing problems in the creation of the external dimension of the EU’s anti-terrorism policy, provided that this policy spans across the three pillars; she also presented some interesting reflections on the potential of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) to fighting terrorism. The discussions led by Paul Luif (IHS) and Karen Smith (LSE) focused mostly on the difficulties of comparing the EU and the US both in respect to their approaches on democracy promotion and anti-terrorism. It also became clear that speaking of ‘internalization’ of US norms is controversial. Lastly, there seemed to be a consensus that the exploration of links between ESDP and the fight against terrorism warrants closer attention.

The day was closed by some short remarks on the side of the organizers and experts on other activities on JHAE taking place in 2008. A possible special issue is envisaged and a second workshop will be held in Brussels in February 2008 on the same issue. It is hoped that the high quality of the contributions and the stimulating discussions will have contributed to a still understudied field of research and provided some paths towards an agenda for research.

Gregory Mounier (University of Reading), Nicole Wichmann (University of Lucerne), Sarah Wolff (LSE)