Abstract

۱٫ Continued cooperation, but with reduced scope, efficiency and influence

۲٫ Potential instability

۳٫ Scope for professional and academic engagement to improve efficiency and perhaps reduce instability

Funding

Declaration of competing interest

Abstract

The prospect of significantly reduced and potentially unstable EU-UK criminal justice cooperation under the 2020 Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) unless criminal justice professionals and academics can help to shape its future development. Key words Post-Brexit readjustment process; The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA); EU-UK criminal justice cooperation

۱٫ Continued cooperation, but with reduced scope, efficiency and influence

… an operational downgrade for law enforcement authorities across the UK … compared to what we had before, …though, if you look at it from the parameters of any other third country, we have done rather well …. ۱

Part Three of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA)2 – the section dealing with criminal justice and security3 – indicates a spectrum of continuity/discontinuity in cooperation from January 1, 2021 onwards.4 This reveals both an initial (at least) loss of operational efficiency and a diminution of formal British government influence over the strategic development of EU criminal justice law, institutions and operational priorities, for example:

General continuity: data sharing (biometric and vehicle data via the Prüm arrangements and criminal records), PNR screening and confiscation measures.