Experts, Technocracy and European Drug Enforcement Policies

Abstract

The Single European Act has been somewhat overshadowed by subsequent treaties that have set the course of European integration, but neither Maastricht nor Amsterdam (or even Nice and its commitment to significant enlargement of the EU) have had anything approaching its impact in psychological terms. That is because, in signing the SEA in 1986, heads of state and government were conceding that their borders — one of the most symbolic aspects of statehood — would in future be shared in ways that would require acceptance of a modified form of sovereign control. The so-called 1992 project created a febrile atmosphere of change and accompanying uncertainty. In the political declaration attached to the SEA, political leaders formally expressed their belief that the introduction of free movement of persons necessitated cooperative measures to cope with the threats associated with a defined set of activities: terrorism, crime, the traffic in drugs, and illicit trading in works of art and antiques, as well as controls on the entry, movement and residence of nationals of non-EEC countries. The declaration was careful to preserve the right of each state to take whatever measures it felt necessary for dealing with these matters, however. We have seen that the Trevi Group was the source of the underlying rationale for these commitments.