Strategic Guidelines for the Eu's Next Justice and Home Affairs Programme

In this report the House of Lords Home Affairs, Health and Education EU Sub-Committee criticises the 'shopping list' style of earlier EU Justice and Home Affairs programmes, in particular the most recent one, the Stockholm Programme (2010-14), as being too diffuse. It calls for a more strategic future programme with effective evaluation central to this next programme. Having come through a period of considerable legislative activity in JHA it is now time to effectively consolidate and to implement existing legislation effectively. Any further legislation must be underpinned by appropriate data and a convincing rationale for EU-level action. The Committee also highlights the need for urgent completion of pending legislation from the old programme including the Passenger Name Record Directive and the Data Protection Directive. EU agencies such as Europol, Eurojust, the European Asylum Support Office, the EU Agency for Network and Information Security and the EMCDDA must be properly resourced, well managed and subject to light-touch Parliamentary scrutiny.