The Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA) brings together the justice and home affairs ministers approximately every other month, to discuss the development and implementation of cooperation and common policies in this sector. The Council therefore acts as co-legislator of the EU by henceforth adopting directives and regulations over the whole field of justice and home affairs.

Council meetings are prepared by working parties and committees, such as the CATS (police and judicial cooperation), the Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum, the COSI (Committee on Internal Security) set up after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Working Party on Civil Law Matters. The institutions are backed up by a number of specialised bodies.

The field of justice and home affairs, which directly affects the lives of European citizens, is probably the policy area where the Treaty of Lisbon has had most impact.

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  Practically the whole field of JHA is subject to codecision (with a qualified majority vote in the Council), with the exception of family law, operational police cooperation and a few other areas (see Background).
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  In addition, matters which were previously dealt with under the third pillar, such as judicial cooperation in criminal matters and police cooperation, will be treated under the same kind of rules as those of the single market. Consequently, EU and national measures in these areas will be subject to the judicial review of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Comprehensive information (agenda, background note, etc) will be available closer to the date of the meeting on http:/www.consilium.europa.eu/councilmeetings

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Jochen MÜLLER

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