Speeches by
| Date | 01 December 2015 |
| DOI | 10.1177/203228441500600405 |
| Published date | 01 December 2015 |
| Author | Vassilios Skouris |
| Subject Matter | Session 1: Introductory Session |
414 Intersentia
SPEECH
V S *
Excellences, ladies a nd gentlemen,
Please accept in the rst place my apologies for not managing to be w ith you today.
Unforeseen professional obligations keep me in Lu xembourg.
But thanks to t he possibilities o ered by modern technologies I can stil l address
this very impor tant forum. And indeed, I felt I had to insist on delivering a nu mber of
messages in order to put an accent on the impor tance of the Trio presidency
conferences.
It is of a particular honour for the Court, that this series focuses on its role in
building an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice followi ng the Lisbon Treaty. And
obviously not just for symbolic reasons . is rst of the three conferences on the role
of the Court comes at a point where we are reachi ng crucial deadlines and crossroad s
for the area of freedom, secur ity and justice.
e years since the Schengen convention have been very enr iching for the domain
and in particu lar have marked a steady enhancement of the Court’s competences and
attribution s.
rough severa l dozens of initiatives and legal instruments t he European
Legislator has extended dra matically the “europeanisation” of the eld and called for
a systematic assessment of the ever cha nging involvement of the Court.
e area of freedom, securit y and justice has gathered signi cant momentum and
now covers a very broad spectrum rang ing from the management of the Europea n
Union’s external borders to judicial cooperation in civi l and crimina l matters,
including asylum a nd immigration policies, police cooperation, a nd the ght against
crime and terrorism.
e Tampere, Hague, and Stockholm progra mmes have paved the way towards
substantial un iformity, ensuring the free movement of persons whi le o ering a high
level of protection to citizens.
e Lisbon Treaty organised a str ucture that improves transparenc y and facilitates
the supervision of the Europe an legislative activities both on the distribution of
powers between the Union and the Member States a nd the protection of citizens of the
European Union. A major contribution has been that al l legislative competences
* Former President of the CJ EU.
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