“From the Sidelines to Center Stage? The Commission in Post-Amsterdam Justice and Home Affairs”

This paper focuses on the European Commission’s efforts to adapt to the post-Maastricht setup in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) as it attempts to break new ground, take on new responsibilities in a different decision-making environment, and get involved in issue areas that were previously in the sole sovereign domain of the member states. The argument is informed by the hypotheses of the new institutional analysis of European integration while pointing out some of the challenges faced by the commission in this new issue setting. It argues that the pillar structure hastily agreed upon during the Maastricht debates made a potentially awkward actor of the European Commission in the dialogue and decision-making in the third pillar, thereby putting constraints on its ability to act as a “competence-maximizing” institution. The awkwardness of the Commission’s position was further due to the general decline in its power in EU politics after 1992, with treaty limitations placed on its capacity to maneuver