The evolution of European Union criminal law (1957-2012)

The central actors in the Trevi framework – Interior Ministers and police officers - were
thus both under major internal pressures. Politicians faced the fear of losing control of
the quantity and quality of immigrants and asylum seekers arriving upon their domestic
territory. Likewise, police forces faced an additional strain on their already pressurised
domestic crime landscape. Both sides fed each others’ fears while also offering helpful
remedies.
Anderson et al. noted how the general expectation that the removal of internal borders
was to make crime control more difficult was in fact the general perception mostly in
law enforcement circles (although literature had conflicting views on whether borders
are useful in the fight against crime). 168 Consequently, regardless of the seeming lack of
clear data or studies on the existent levels of criminality and on its potential increase
with the completion of the single market, in the years between 1985 and 1993 (year of
the entry into force of the TEU(M)), cooperation in criminal matters was streamlined.
As will be explained below, the Trevi structure was expanded and many other ad hoc
groups were created. The scope of intervention was broadened and issues ranging from
terrorism to illegal immigration, drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings or
hooliganism among others began to be addressed in this transcontinental context.
Overall, a narrative of the need to fight an increasing threat of organised crime (broadly
understood and deeply related to the single market) began to emerge in the background
of European integration, in what can be called the early origins of Euro-crime. 169 Post-
1985 was thus an era of the relative formalisation and rationalisation of law criminal law
related concerns and initiatives across the EC which ultimately allowed for their
incorporation later on into the TEU(M).
2.1. An incremental claim: expanding structures and themes
After 1985, the change in the political discourse on crime, together with the internal
market, brought about changes in criminal law related matters, namely a significant
proliferation of structures and the broadening scope of the EC’s interest in criminal
matters as well as an attempt at the formalisation and rationalisation of such a
framework. The legacy of those years remained at the core of the new developments that
created additional layers to the initiatives already in place. From a structural point of
view, the most significant and immediate change was the expansion of Trevi’s
configuration. First, the remit of the second working group, which had been established
in 1976, was expanded to cover matters such as football hooliganism, leading to the
168 M. Anderson., et al., Policing the European Union (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995) 16-19.
169
See chapter 2.
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