External relations law: how the outside shapes the inside

By offering its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ), the Union barely linguistically disguises an aspiration to assume core state functions. The carefully chosen term AFSJ is not only loaded with social contract connotations but also contains a spatial notion of territorial unity that has a state flavour to it. The strengthening of the policy fields brought together under the AFSJ has been explained as a necessary complement to the internal market compensating the removal of frontiers within the EU. However, AFSJ policies, arguably as all EU policies, are shaped by many pull and push forces, originating not only within the Union but also outside.
This chapter explores the extent to which the AFSJ is influenced from the outside.