In November 2004, the European Council adopted the multi-annual Hague Programme on strengthening freedom, security and justice in the European Union, the drafting of which Slovenia has had been continuously and actively participating in. The Hague Programme is a five-year programme in the area of justice and home affairs; it outlines the EU's strategic and development orientations and challenges it faces in that area. It includes the key priorities of all policies related to the establishment of freedom, security and justice (i.e. asylum, immigration, integration of legal immigrants, border policy, visas, information exchange, the fight against terrorism and organised crime, police cooperation, and judicial cooperation in criminal and civil matters), including their external dimension. The Hague Programme is a successor to the Tampere Programme, which was approved by the European Council in October 1999. This was the first multi-annual programme with a view to defining priority tasks in the area of freedom, security and justice.
 
For the implementation of the Hague Programme, the European Commission in 2005 prepared the Action Plan implementing the Hague Programme, which was approved by the EU Council. The Action Plan defines the Hague Programme priorities and orientations as concrete actions, including the timetable for their adoption and implementation. The Action Plan includes the following chapters:

• an introductory chapter on general orientations, which provides for respect for and active promotion of fundamental rights, foresees evaluation of previously implemented measures and inclusion of the European strategy for the external dimension of justice and home affairs, the EU Action Plan on combating terrorism and the EU Action Plan on drugs within the framework of implementing the Hague Programme;
• the area of strengthening freedom, which includes a package of proposed measures regarding citizenship of the Union and asylum, migration, border and visa policies;
• the area of strengthening security with an exchange of information between law enforcement and judicial authorities, the fight against terrorism and organised crime, as well as protection and crisis management measures; and
• the area of strengthening judicial cooperation in criminal and in civil matters.
 
As foreseen, the Action Plan implementing the Hague Programme has been supplemented by the Action Plan on Drugs (2005–2008) and the Action Plan on Combating Terrorism, which has been checked and revised by the EU Council twice a year, and the Strategy for the External Dimension of JHA: Global Freedom, Security and Justice adopted in December 2005. The Strategy reflects the special relations of the Union with third countries, groups of countries, regions (in particular in the eastern, southeastern and southern neighbourhood) and defines specific modes of cooperation in the area of justice and home affairs.

The Hague Programme also contains a concept of evaluating the implementation and effects of the planned measures. To this end, the European Commission in 2005 presented communications on the past and future implementation of the Hague Programme and on further evaluation of the above policies. At the end of 2006, the EU Council confirmed its determination to pursue high objectives in the area of freedom, security and justice and to implement the priority measures defined by the Hague Programme in its Action Plan. In the remaining period (2007–2009), special attention will be focused on mutual recognition in civil and criminal matters, creating a comprehensive EU migration policy, improvement of police cooperation by applying the availability principle and more extensive operational cooperation, the fight against terrorism and organised crime, development of the external dimension of Justice and Home Affairs, establishment of the new-generation Schengen information system and enlargement of the Schengen area.

As the Hague Programme will have expired by the end of 2009, discussion on continuing the EU Strategy in the area of freedom, security and justice after 2010 was already opened during the German Presidency.

Contacts:

Coordination II Department

Petra Česen Čatar

t: 01 478 2402

f: 01 478 2486

e: petra.cesen-catar(at)gov.si

(last change: 26.10.2007)