![]() This article will focus on criminal law but also underline the importance of a holistic understanding of the AFSJ as a whole − not isolated but related to the EU acquis in its entirety while still being characterized by the core of its sensitive subject matter of criminal law and human rights protection. This brief contribution will offer some reflections on the future of AFSJ law and what the author considers to be the main challenges for EU governance in this area by offering eight key points for further reference in the future. What then would not be more suitable than including the AFSJ in this schedule? 2020 is the EU’s vision when all will get well. 2 Thus, for the first time, the AFSJ and the new multi-annual programme has been placed in the wider context of the future of Europe. This is certainly the hope of the Commission, which has set out its view in two communications: one dealing concretely with justice and home affairs and the other indirectly so in terms of the rule of law, which is of importance for the AFSJ. This would indicate the beginning of something new: a novel era for AFSJ law. The transnational protocol nr 10 is likewise coming to an end and some Member States like the UK have to decide on their commitment to the Union and to criminal law (The UK’s semi-permanent opt-out under Protocol 36 and hence the uncertainty are also coming to an end). The Stockholm Programme, which entered into force in conjunction with the Lisbon Treaty, is already coming to an end in 2014. ![]() ![]() Not only is the AFSJ still the fastest expanding field in contemporary EU integration, but it is also a very sensitive field, dealing with the most delicate legal issues such as the fight against crime, security, fundamental rights of protection, and judicial cooperation. The EU’s area of freedom, security and justice is an area that has had to respond to this question more urgently than perhaps any other EU policy area. 1 Most importantly, the document demonstrates that the EU’s policy in this area has been largely streamlined with other EU polices, as EU criminal law has also been affected by the financial crisis. The Commission’s communication, however, on “The EU Justice Agenda for 2020 – Strengthening Trust, Mobility and Growth within the Union” indicates that there is reason for hope. Five years after the successful entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the Stockholm Programme, and with all the legal possibilities in place to move forward with this EU project, the political climate in the EU seems all the more difficult, and it is marked by intense and heated debate on the subject. Such a scenario would have ended the fast track to further EU integration in criminal law as a better route to pursue than the alternative, namely the Court’s case law. When the Stockholm agenda was being negotiated in 2009, the negotiators faced the uncertainty that the Lisbon Treaty would never survive its initial failure of 2007 and thereby risked the same fate as the doomed Constitutional Treaty of 2005.
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