Link to the publication on the Publisher’s catalogue
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcms.12397/epdf

Keywords:
policy, EU, justice and home affairs, European Union Legal Instruments

Abstract:
This article proposes an explanation as to why institutional change–understood as more compe-tences for the European Union’s supranational institutions–has rarely led to policy change in theArea of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). It draws attention to the constraints that newlyempowered actors have faced in the wake of introducing the co-decision procedure. If the key prin-ciples of a given AFSJ sub-policy–its‘policy core’–were defined before institutional changeoccurred, the Council (as the dominant actor of the early intergovernmental co-operation) hasfound it easier to prevail in the altered structural environment and to co-opt or sideline actors withcompeting rationales. The article compares the importance of the new decision-making procedurewith two alternative pathways potentially leading to policy change, namely, the power of litigationand the impact of unexpected external events.