No Constitutional Treaty? Implications for the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. CEPS Working Documents No. 231, 1 October 2005

The future of the Constitutional Treaty is now very much in doubt. The blows received from the French and Dutch referenda in such rapid succession have made it difficult to imagine that the Treaty, at least in its current form, will ever enter into force. Inter alia, the Constitution promised to consolidate and extend the flagship of the Amsterdam Treaty – the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. This paper examines what the failure of the Constitutional Treaty would mean for this critical area explores what can be done to mitigate the negative effects