ABSTRACT
The historical developments of European justice and home affairs (JHA) are inextricably linked with the activities of Europe’s core member states – Germany, France as well as the Benelux countries. These countries are not only founding members of the European Union (EU), but their similar geographic exposure and close connection influence their position in a state system increasingly characterized by ‘differentiated membership’ (Leuffen et al. 2012). As early as the 1970s and 1980s, these five countries started to cooperate outside of the traditional institutional European structures and established basic building blocks on which the Amsterdam Treaty would much later construct the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). This early mover advantage provided those core member states with the ability to shape the policy domain closely along the lines of their own preferences. In addition, in the following decades, they remained principal drivers of JHA even under changing institutional environments in Europe. However, purely intergovernmental perspectives on these developments fall short because, in the meantime, cooperation on crime, terrorism and migration – originally started as a particular aspect of member states’ foreign policy – was transformed into a highly integrated area of European home affairs. The past four decades of intensifying cooperation also had far-reaching consequences for core member states. These included the convergence of basic national problem-solving approaches, the implementation of an increasingly harmonized legal framework and the deepseated integration of European JHA cooperation even into day-to-day administrative routines.
