ABSTRACT
Throughout the history of the European Union, both Canada and Australia have cooperated first and foremost with the UK. For both countries, the UK was a channel connecting them with possible EU policies of interest. The introduction of the EU justice and home affairs (JHA) pillar, from which the UK had a number of opt-outs, did not improve the situation. As a result, neither Australia nor Canada voiced any clear interest in that policy domain for a long time. However, since the mid-2000s, Canada, and to a lesser extent Australia, have become more open to working with the EU in the JHA domain. Still, the differences in policy definitions and the conceptualizations of security and justice allow for adhoc cooperation at most, while more efforts are actually spent on building a common understanding of risks, legal frameworks and political cultures. In addition, there has also not been much scholarly or public attention given to cooperation with these two states. In fact, because Canada and Australia do not strike an anti-American chord in the EU, several policy items that would have caused a major outburst of criticism in the case of EU–US cooperation have gone through unnoticed (e.g., Passenger Name Record (PNR) agreements). Indeed, the focus of almost all scholars working on the external dimensions of JHA has been on cooperation with either neighboring countries or the USA.
