"Negotiating the Third Pillar: The Maastricht Treaty and the failure of Justice and Home Affairs cooperation among EU member states"

Turnbull-Henson, Penny. (1997) "Negotiating the Third Pillar: The Maastricht Treaty and the failure of Justice and Home Affairs cooperation among EU member states". In: UNSPECIFIED, Seattle, WA. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This paper examines the difficult genesis of justice and home affairs cooperation among member states of the EU since the inclusion of the so-called "Third Pillar" in the Maastricht Treaty. The paper attempts to set this analysis within a broader examination of the ‘fit’ between the development of the Third Pillar and theories of European integration. Although it would initially appear that the national preferences and intergovernmental practices of member states continue to dominate the broad policy sector, a number of factors ensure a poor fit between intergovernmental theory and practice in the Third Pillar. The paper distinguishes between two key phases in the Third Pillar’s development--its negotiation during the 1991 Intergovernmental Conference and the implementation of the relevant treaty articles in the three years since the Maastricht Treaty came into force--and illustrates how the different institutional dynamics of treaty making and day to day decision making in the EU’s policy arena have ensured the Third Pillar’s uneasy and often unsuccessful development. The paper also briefly introduces a ‘sensitive policy sector’ variable into the analysis, examining to what extent the policy sectors’ significance to the contemporary discourse on national identity, internal security and sovereignty affects the Third Pillar.

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