Justice and home affairs

2009 was a year of transition for the justice and home affairs (JHA) domain: The Hague Programme which had governed much of the development of the Union's `area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) since 2004 came to an end and new perspectives were opened up by the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the adoption of the new 2010 to 2014 Stockholm Programme. While the intense negotiations on the Stockholm Programme were overshadowed until October by the uncertain fate of the Lisbon Treaty, the institutions focused mainly on a range of leftovers from the Hague Programme. Whereas several significant legislative texts were adopted on immigration and criminal justice co-operation issues, other fields were marked primarily by continuing negotiations and new Commission proposals (asylum), the strengthening of external action capacity (civil law), efforts to improve the implementation of adopted measures (border controls, the fight against organized crime and terrorism) and institutional consolidation (Europol). The total annual output of the JHA Council dropped from 144 adopted texts the year before to 121 texts,1 perhaps a sort of end of programming period fatigue which could also be observed at the end of the preceding Tampere period.