The End of the Transitional Period for Police and Criminal Justice Measures Adopted before the Lisbon Treaty: Who monitors trust in the European Criminal Justice area? CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe No. 74, December 2014

This study examines the legal and political implications of the forthcoming end of the transitional period for the measures in the fields of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, as set out in Protocol 36 to the EU Treaties. This Protocol limits some of the most far-reaching innovations introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon over EU cooperation on Justice and Home Affairs for a period of five years after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon (until 1 December 2014), and provides the UK with special ‘opt out/opt-in’ possibilities. The study focuses on the meaning of the transitional period for the wider European Criminal Justice area. The most far-reaching change emerging from the end of this transition will be the expansion of the European Commission and Luxembourg Court of Justice scrutiny powers over Member States’ implementation of EU criminal justice law. The possibility offered by Protocol 36 for the UK to opt out and opt back in to pre-Lisbon Treaty instruments poses serious challenges to a common EU area of justice by further institutionalising ‘over-flexible’ participation in criminal justice instruments. The study argues that in light of Article 82 TFEU the rights of the defence are now inextricably linked to the coherency and effective operation of the principle of mutual recognition of criminal decisions, and calls the European Parliament to request the UK to opt in EU Directives on suspects procedural rights as condition for the UK to ‘opt back in’ measures like the European Arrest Warrant.

Defying the Treaty: The Influence of the Polish and Lithuanian Council Presidencies on the Development of the Eastern Partnership. EU Diplomacy Paper No. 6, October 2014

Many scholars now argue that the Treaty of Lisbon has removed the role and influence of the rotating Council Presidency in the domain of the European Union’s foreign affairs. This paper will, however, go beyond a superficial, treaty-based analysis of the influence of the post-Lisbon rotating Council Presidency and instead look at two primary, residual, informal Presidential roles, namely agenda-shaping and brokering. It will examine the extent to which these informal roles allowed the Polish and Lithuanian Council Presidencies of July to December 2011 and 2013 respectively to influence the development of the bilateral, multilateral and internal tracks of the Eastern Partnership. The paper will argue that the considerable influence of these rotating Presidencies defied the logic of the Lisbon Treaty, suggesting that the ‘golden age’ of this six-month position, whereby individual Member States pursue foreign policy issues of significant domestic interest at the European level, has not yet passed.