One Europe or Several?

Transcription

1 One Europe or Several? Series Editor: Helen Wallace The One Europe or Several? series examines contemporary processes of political, security, economic, social and cultural change across the European continent, as well as issues of convergence/divergence and prospects for integration and fragmentation. Many of the books in the series are cross-country comparisons; others evaluate the European institutions, in particular the European Union and NATO, in the context of eastern enlargement. Titles include: Sarah Birch ELECTORAL SYSTEMS AND POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION IN POST- COMMUNIST EUROPE Sarah Birch, Frances Millard, Marina Popescu and Kieran Williams EMBODYING DEMOCRACY Electoral System Design in Post-Communist Europe Andrew Cottey, Timothy Edmunds and Anthony Forster (editors) DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF THE MILITARY IN POSTCOMMUNIST EUROPE Guarding the Guards Anthony Forster, Timothy Edmunds and Andrew Cottey (editors) THE CHALLENGE OF MILITARY REFORM IN POSTCOMMUNIST EUROPE Building Professional Armed Forces Anthony Forster, Timothy Edmunds and Andrew Cottey (editors) SOLDIERS AND SOCIETIES IN POSTCOMMUNIST EUROPE Legitimacy and Change Karen Henderson (editor) THE AREA OF FREEDOM, SECURITY AND JUSTICE IN THE ENLARGED EUROPE James Hughes, Gwendolyn Sasse and Claire Gordon EUROPEANIZATION AND REGIONALIZATION IN THE EU S ENLARGEMENT TO CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE The Myth of Conditionality Andrew Jordan THE EUROPEANIZATION OF BRITISH ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY A Departmental Perspective Christopher Lord A DEMOCRACTIC AUDIT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

2 Valsamis Mitsilegas, Jörg Monar and Wyn Rees THE EUROPEAN UNION AND INTERNAL SECURITY Guardian of the People? Helen Wallace (editor) INTERLOCKING DIMENSIONS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION One Europe or Several? Series Standing Order ISBN (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

3 The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice in the Enlarged Europe Edited by Karen Henderson University of Leicester

4 Editorial matter and selection Karen Henderson 2005 Chapters 1 8 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 2005 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The area of freedom, security, and justice in the enlarged Europe / edited by Karen Henderson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Internal security European Union countries. 2. Illegal aliens European Union countries. 3. Illegal aliens Europe, Eastern. 4. Organized crime European Union countries. 5. Organized crime Europe, Eastern. 6. Crime prevention European Union countries. 7. European Union countries Emigration and immigration. 8. European Union. I. Henderson, Karen, 1954 HV8194.A2A dc

5 Contents List of Tables Notes on the Contributors List of Abbreviations Introduction viii ix xi xii 1 Perceptions of Internal Security Issues in the New Member States 1 Karen Henderson Changing agendas 1 The securitization of crime and immigration threats, Preparing for EU accession, Joining the new Europe, Organized Crime in the New EU States of East Central Europe 25 Miroslav Nozina Introduction 25 The phenomenon of organized crime 26 Responses to organized crime 35 Conclusions 43 3 Extending the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: the Crucial Case of Poland 48 Iwona Piórko and Monika Sie Dhian Ho Introduction 48 The special character of JHA in the context of EU enlargement 49 The special case of Polish accession in the field of JHA 51 Opportunities for Poland 52 Challenges for Poland 56 Conclusion 59 v

6 vi Contents 4 The Implications of Schengen Visa Policy for the Visegrad States: the Case of Slovakia 65 Alexander Duleba Introduction 65 The impact of EU accession on Slovakia s border regime with Ukraine 66 Impacts of the visa regime 72 Summary of main findings 84 5 Justice and Home Affairs and the EU s New Neighbours: Governance Beyond Membership? 89 Sandra Lavenex Introduction 89 Beyond the eastern border: external effects of EU enlargement 90 The foreign policy dimension of JHA 93 JHA in relations with the new eastern neighbours 96 The Wider Europe initiative: towards a new neighbourhood policy? 102 Conclusion: external governance in JHA A New Area of Freedom, Security and Justice for the Enlarged EU? The Results of the European Convention 110 Jörg Monar Introduction 110 The new legal framework 112 The Charter of Fundamental Rights as part of the legal framework 114 The revised policy-making objectives 116 Division of powers and subsidiarity 121 Solidarity as a new integration principle 123 The reforms of the decision-making system 124 Implementation 127 Democratic and judicial control 128 Overall assessment 130 Prospects after the failure of the first IGC round in December

7 Contents vii 7 EU Institutional Reform and New Member States in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice 135 Vladimír Bileík Introduction 135 The role of the CEECs and the context of the Convention 136 Members-to-be and justice and home affairs 138 The CEECs and the fate of the draft constitution Conclusion: The Politics of Freedom, Security and Justice in the Enlarging EU 149 Heather Grabbe Introduction 149 The changing nature of borders and the privatization of fear 150 Border dilemmas for Central and Eastern Europe 151 The impact of 11 September 2001 and its aftermath on Europe 154 Will the EU continue to liberalize the movement of people? 157 The future politics of internal security 159 Bibliography 162 Index 170

8 List of Tables 1.1 Time taken to negotiate Chapter 24 (justice and home affairs) in the EU accession negotiations Number of people legally crossing the Slovak Ukrainian border, Transport movement through Slovak Ukrainian border crossings, Slovakia s trade with Ukraine, (in $ million, current prices) Foreign visitors who used tourist accommodation in Slovakia by country of origin, Customs offences committed by legal business entities and individuals Number of illegal migrants detained by the Slovak border police at the Slovak Ukrainian state border, Pressure of illegal migrants on the borders of the Slovak Republic with neighbouring countries, Pressure of illegal migrants on the Slovak Republic s state borders by direction, viii

9 Notes on the Contributors Vladimír Bilčík has worked as an analyst at the Research Centre of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA) since He holds an M.Phil. in European Politics from the University of Oxford and has published both in Slovakia and other countries on issues of EU enlargement. From February 2002 to July 2003 he advised Ján Figel, member of the Convention on the Future of Europe. Alexander Duleba is director of the Research Centre of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association and the head of the Centre s Eastern Europe research programme. He is author, editor or co-editor of 22 books and 75 studies in the field of international relations and East European studies. His main works include Eastern Policy of the Enlarged European Union: A Visegrad Perspective (co-editor, 2003); Ukraine and Slovakia (2002); Russia at the End of Yeltsin s Era (1999); and Transcarpathia (1995). Heather Grabbe is Deputy Director of the Centre for European Reform, an independent think-tank based in London, and an Associate Fellow of the European Institute, London School of Economics. She has worked extensively on EU enlargement and its implications, as well as on other European issues and questions of conditionality. Her publications include The Constellations of Europe: How Enlargement will Transform the EU (2004); Profiting from EU Enlargement (2001) and Enlarging the EU Eastwards (with Kirsty Hughes, 1998). She was previously Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs and has been a visiting fellow at the European University Institute (Florence), the European Union Institute for Security Studies (Paris) and the Centre for International Relations (Warsaw). Karen Henderson is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Leicester. Her research has focused on EU eastern enlargement and the domestic politics of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Her publications include Slovakia: The Escape from Invisibility (2002), Back to Europe: Central and Eastern Europe and the European Union (editor, 1999) and Post-Communist Politics (with Neil Robinson, 1997). ix

10 x Notes on the Contributors Sandra Lavenex is Assistant Professor of European Studies and International Relations at the University of Bern in Switzerland. She obtained her Ph.D. from the European University Institute in Florence in 1999 for a study on the Europeanization of refugee policies. Her main areas or research are EU asylum and immigration policies and EU external relations with the near abroad. Jörg Monar is Professor in Contemporary European Studies and Co-Director of the Sussex European Institute, University of Sussex. He was previously Professor of Politics at the University of Leicester and before that Director of the Institut für Europäische Politik. He is also a professor and member of the Academic Council at the College of Europe, has worked since 1999 as a specialist adviser on EU justice and home affairs issues for the House of Lords EU Committee and is co-editor of the European Foreign Affairs Review. Miroslav Nožina is a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations, Prague. His spheres of interest encompass security problems connected to international criminal activities and drug-related issues. He is author of The World of Drugs in the Czech Lands (1997) and International Organised Crime in the Czech Republic (2003). Iwona Piórko is a lecturer in Justice and Home Affairs at the Collegium Civitas, Warsaw, and a Ph.D. candidate at the Sussex European Institute, University of Sussex (UK). She graduated from the College of Europe Natolin, where she later worked as Academic Assistant in Politics and Administration. She is a member of the Centre for European Policy Studies academic network on JHA and Enlargement (Brussels). She also cooperates with the European Policy Centre (Brussels) and the Centre for International Relations (Warsaw). Monika Sie Dhian Ho is senior researcher at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). She has been lecturer in Political Science and International Relations at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and at Leiden University, and currently teaches a course on European Integration at the MPA of the Netherlands School of Public Administration in The Hague.

11 List of Abbreviations AFSJ CEEC CIS COREPER EC ECE EP EU EU-15 EU-25 FTD GUUAM JHA IGC NATO NDI NIS PCA QMV SIS TEC WG area of freedom, security and justice Central and East European countries Commonwealth of Independent States Committee of Permanent Representatives (of member state governments to the European Council) European Community East Central Europe European Parliament European Union Pre-2004 EU member states EU member states after 2004 enlargement facilitated travel document Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Moldova justice and home affairs Intergovernmental Conference North Atlantic Treaty Organization Northern Dimension Initiative newly independent states Partnership and Cooperation Agreement qualified majority voting Schengen Information System Treaty establishing the European Community working group xi

12 Introduction This book looks at two of the profound changes that have altered the shape and form of the European Union over the last decade. On 1 May 2004, it enlarged for the fifth time since its foundation in This was not only the largest of the enlargement waves, but it has also been the most important symbolically and in practical terms since, a mere 15 years previously, eight of the ten new member states had been governed by communist regimes. Their accession to the EU marked the culmination of their return to Europe, and the reuniting of a continent that had been divided for more than 40 years up to It also represented a quite remarkable triumph of painstaking bureaucratic endeavour. With the help of waves of Commission officials, states whose legal and administrative capacity had been gravely weakened by four decades of communism accomplished the not inconsiderable task of harmonizing their legislation with the EU s ever-growing acquis communautaire, at the same time as constructing a functioning market economy and consolidating their new democracies. However, the Europe to which the accession states were returning was a European Union whose goals and functions had also expanded over recent years. The second profound change relates to an expansion in the policy areas in which the EU is involved. Public attention has tended to focus on the introduction of the euro and attempts at forging a common foreign and security policy, yet the construction of what was at first referred to as the EU s third pillar the extension of EU competencies in the field of justice and home affairs was arguably more likely to affect the everyday life of the ordinary citizen. This included issues such as border controls, asylum and immigration policy, as well as judicial cooperation and combating crime. As the 1990s progressed, these internal security matters became increasingly prominent among international and domestic concerns. Despite the importance of both EU eastward enlargement and the expansion of the EU s justice and home affairs agenda, there has so far been relatively little analysis of the relationship between these two new areas of EU activity. The aim of this book is to examine both xii

13 Introduction xiii how the expansion of the EU has presented extra challenges and achievements in the field of internal security, and how the third pillar has affected preparations for accession in the new member states. The two spheres have from the outset been very closely linked. It was in many ways the end of the cold war, which left Eastern Europe free to seek closer ties to the EU, that also shifted the focus of West European states from the traditional emphasis on external, military security to a greater preoccupation with internal security. This occurred not merely because of the reduction of the Soviet threat under Gorbachev, but also because the sudden opening of borders in the countries previously behind the iron curtain left them vulnerable to penetration by organized crime and illegal immigration. The states of Central and Eastern Europe were thus initially viewed as threats which endangered the internal security of the European Union. At the same time, it was becoming increasingly clear that justice and home affairs issues could no longer be handled effectively by the governments of individual states. In a world of open borders, transnational cooperation is vitally important. The events of 11 September 2001 brought home how vulnerable the citizens of even the most powerful state can be, and gave a further impetus to international cooperation in creating internal security. The EU response to the changed situation in Europe was in essence constructive and positive. Given the desire of the post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe to become members of the EU, it attempted to incorporate them into a unified area of freedom, security and justice, rather than bolstering its defences against them. This confronted the EU with the prospect that most of its vulnerable external land border would be pushed east, to be guarded by erstwhile Warsaw Pact states such as Poland, while the under-equipped police forces and courts of its prospective new members in Central and Eastern Europe required urgent assistance in preparing themselves for ever-deepening cooperation in judicial affairs. The new security agenda posed demanding and largely unexpected challenges for the states striving to return to Europe. In the mid-1990s, their applications to join the EU had been conceived of in largely economic terms. The focus of attention was on the first pillar : the European Community as it had existed at the beginning of the 1990s. Yet the Treaty of Maastricht, agreed in December 1991, had added a second pillar comprising the common foreign and security

14 xiv Introduction policy, as well as the third pillar of justice and home affairs. Article K of Title VI of the Treaty on European Union listed nine items which member states regarded as matters of common interest : asylum policy, rules on crossing external borders, immigration policy, combating drug addiction, combating international fraud, civil judicial cooperation, criminal judicial cooperation, customs cooperation and police cooperation. These were all areas that had previously been the exclusive preserve of national governments, and they remained the subject of intergovernmental decision making. Virtually no attention was paid to this change in the other Europe. While the new democratic governments in post-communist Europe were all floundering in the face of the practical problems posed by the sudden and unexpected encroachment of crime into their citizens everyday lives at the time when they submitted their applications to join the EU in the mid-1990s, the two policy fields did not appear to be linked. This situation changed markedly in The European Commission issued its avis opinions on the membership applications from ten Central and East European states in July 1997, and recommended beginning accession negotiations with some of them. However, in June 1997 the EU s Intergovernmental Conference had concluded with the draft Treaty of Amsterdam, which for the first time set, as one of the Union s objectives, the development of an area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ), in which the free movement of persons is assured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration and the prevention and combating of crime. The EU was hence encroaching further into fields that had previously been the exclusive preserve of member states governments. At the same time, the Treaty incorporated part of the third pillar immigration and asylum into the first, Community, pillar. Moreover, a protocol integrated the Schengen acquis, including the abolition of checks at common borders, into the framework of the European Union, with the concomitant demand that all candidate states must accept it in full. This precluded the possibility of any new member states opting out of the Schengen area as Britain and Ireland had done. The applicant states were thus confronted with a number of complex tasks that they had not been expecting, and their justice and interior ministries were drawn into the EU enlargement process. These were already undergoing a fundamental transformation as part

15 Introduction xv of the post-communist democratization process, and now found themselves forced to adapt to EU standards, which due to the dominant position of member state governments rather than the European Commission in justice and home affairs issues were often somewhat elusive. Moreover, justice and home affairs was an area where the member states could not afford to be lax about the demands placed on the governments of the candidate states since crime, immigration and asylum are highly sensitive for the media and electorates. In the light of this, the progress made by the states of Central and Eastern Europe in preparing for membership of the AFSJ was remarkable. As enlargement negotiations progressed, the idea that the west and east of Europe belonged to a single area in which there should be both freedom of movement and internal security took firm root, and at the same time, the centrality of the AFSJ to the entire European project also increased even further. When representatives of old and new member states gathered in a convention on the future of Europe, the draft EU constitution they drew up gave the AFSJ pride of place. Whereas the Treaty of Amsterdam had ranked it below economic and social progress and a common foreign and security policy in its list of objectives, only peace and the well-being of its peoples took precedence in the proposed constitution. * * * This book follows through some of the many complex issues that had to be tackled in order to integrate the new member states into the AFSJ as well as presenting some of the dilemmas that remain. The interplay of domestic and international concerns throughout Europe has produced a sometimes fascinating clash of agendas, and one that has affected both the implementation of the EU s justice and home affairs agenda and the EU enlargement process itself. The initial focus is on how the new member states have adapted to the EU s internal security agenda, while later chapters examine both recent developments in the AFSJ and the situation of those East European states that have little chance of joining in the foreseeable future. The topic is approached from a number of differing, but complementary, angles, including case studies from some of the new member states in East Central Europe. Individual chapters are written by specialists who have conducted research on a range of justice and home affairs issues.

16 xvi Introduction In Chapter 1, Karen Henderson looks at internal security issues from the perspective of candidate states. Three distinct periods in post-communist development are highlighted, with particular reference to the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the first half of the 1990s, threat perceptions in Central and Eastern Europe changed markedly, and the public s moral panic about both the increase of domestic crime, and the influx of foreign migrants and organized crime, forced governments to reassess priorities in policing and border issues. In the second half of the 1990s, the more technical challenges of the EU accession process came to the fore, and the restructuring of the work of the justice and interior ministries was primarily a response to external demands. However, despite earlier predictions that justice and home affairs would be one of the most challenging areas in the accession negotiations, by the early years of the new century, there had been some remarkable achievements in harmonizing policies in countries that had had once belonged to a different bloc. In Chapter 2, Miroslav Nozina examines the challenges posed by organized crime in the new member states. Looking first at the peculiarities of the socialist criminal underworld that existed until 1989, it then maps the dramatic rise in crime in the early post-communist period, and the fundamental changes in the nature of criminal activity that took place after the opening of borders. The restructuring of organized crime began quickly as local underworlds met criminal groupings from elsewhere in Europe and the rest of the world, and exploited the new opportunities offered by the privatization process and the prevalence of corruption. However, the reconstruction of legal systems also gained pace by the second half of the 1990s, and the Visegrad Four states in East Central Europe provide illustrations of how both the security forces and the judiciary adapted to meet the enormous domestic challenges, as well as the need for more intensive international cooperation and harmonization as the EU accession process developed. In Chapter 3, Iwona Piórko and Monika Sie Dhian Ho weigh up the costs and benefits of EU accession in the field of justice and home affairs by taking Poland as a case study. Poland is exceptionally important as it is the largest of the new member states, and will have the second longest external land border guarded by a single member state. The chapter looks first at the particular problems caused by

17 Introduction xvii Poland s geographic position and the changes in migration patterns after It then analyses the opportunities presented to Poland by EU accession, such as the strengthening of institutions, improvements in training and resources, improved inter-institutional cooperation and strategic policy making, and the advantages of full integration into the AFSJ. It then balances these against the costs incurred in terms of financial, socio-economic and political challenges, including the disruption of links with eastern neighbours. It concludes by discussing the various ways in which the costs of EU accession can be alleviated. In Chapter 4, Alexander Duleba studies the implications of Schengen visa policy by examining the case of Slovakia, which was the first of the Visegrad states to respond to EU demands by introducing a visa regime with an immediate neighbour. It illustrates the historical complexities typical of the region, since the Slovak Ukrainian border divided territories that had, until 1945, long been together in one (though not always the same) state. After looking at the political background and diplomatic problems caused by the controversial change in visa policy, the chapter analyses original data about what actually happened after the border regime was altered. Statistics on the legal movement of people, volumes of trade and tourism, illegal migration, labour migration and criminal activity show that results did not always match up to fears and expectations. While economic disruption was less than predicted, the bilateral visa regime did little to increase the internal security of the AFSJ. The improved border protection measures implemented with EU assistance in preparation for the Slovak Ukrainian border becoming a Schengen external border brought far more notable results. In Chapter 5, Sandra Lavenex examines justice and home affairs and the EU s new neighbours, with a focus on Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, which pose soft security threats to the new EU both as countries of origin and transit countries for illegal migrants and organized crime. It examines governance beyond membership : how the EU seeks to bind non-member states to the policies of the Union when it lacks the leverage of the promise of membership. After looking at EU policies from the perspective of the governments of the new neighbours, it analyses the foreign policy dimension of justice and home affairs, and the development of new forms of cooperation with the states involved that aim to protect the

18 xviii Introduction AFSJ. It considers whether the Wider Europe initiative represents a new neighbourhood policy that might mitigate the negative consequences of EU enlargement for the states excluded, or if, as a tool of external governance, it is a substitute for the leverage that could be provided by the promise of membership. In Chapter 6, Jörg Monar questions whether the Convention on the Future of Europe, and the draft constitution that it agreed, will produce a new AFSJ for the enlarged EU. After some initial observations on the importance, and the sensitivity, of the area for all member states, it looks at the new legal framework established in the draft constitution, together with its failure clearly to define the objectives of the AFSJ. It examines the importance of the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as the problems that may arise from the detailed yet at times contradictory policy-making objectives established. This is followed by more detailed analysis of provisions in individual policy-making areas (border checks, asylum and immigration and judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters); the division of powers suggested; reforms of the decision-making system; and democratic and judicial control. Finally, it assesses the relevance of the draft constitution to the enlarged EU, and whether the compromises involved in its formation undermine its importance for determining the future of the area of freedom, security and justice. In Chapter 7, Vladimír Bileík examines the contribution made by the new member states to the discussion of justice and home affairs issues in the Convention on the Future of Europe. This forum provided the first opportunity for representatives of the governments and parliaments of the accession states, as equal partners of those from current member states and the EU institutions, to play a positive role in decision making, rather than being recipients of EU policy. The work and the conclusions of the Convention s Working Group Freedom, Security and Justice are analysed with a particular focus on contributions by representatives of candidate countries. Questions are raised about the extent to which they were equipped for the task of policy formulation, and able to represent coherent and authoritative policy stances on justice and home affairs issues within their own states. Looking forward, the chapter discusses likely attitudes to future challenges in developing the AFSJ on the part of the new member states. In Chapter 8, Heather Grabbe draws together the book s main arguments and summarizes the internal security challenges facing the

19 Introduction xix enlarged Europe, and the tensions it will experience in its attempts to complete the AFSJ. It highlights in particular the salience of borderrelated issues and the dilemmas faced by governments in the new member states, for whom security concerns must be matched against their citizens preoccupation with the right to freedom of travel and foreign policy demands in their relations with eastern neighbours. It also examines the Union s responses to 11 September 2001, how it has affected both threat perceptions and common policy making, and the debates on internal security that continue in both the old member states and the new members of Central and Eastern Europe. * * * The book is the result of cooperation developed in the course of the research project Towards a New European Governance of Internal Security : Challenges, Objectives and Structures conducted at the University of Leicester under the leadership of Professor Jörg Monar from 1999 to Earlier findings from the project, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council s One Europe or Several? Research Programme (grant L ), were published in The European Union and Internal Security: Guardian of the People by Valsamis Mitsilegas, Jörg Monar and Wyn Rees, which appeared in this series in The current volume expands the project s research on illegal immigration and organized crime with reference to the EU accession states, and is the work of an international team of authors brought together at its final conference on EU Governance and the Challenge of Internal Security held in Leicester in September Their original contributions have been reformulated and revised to cover the period up until EU eastward enlargement in May 2004, and complemented by the addition of two further chapters in order to provide comprehensive up-to-date coverage of the crucial issues linked to the AFSJ in the new Europe. Thanks are given to everyone who contributed ideas and information to the project, most particularly to the many officials of EU institutions and interior ministries in the accession states who gave much of their valuable time to assist the authors in the research. Karen Henderson Leicester