Avatar photo

Paul Johnston

Ambassador to Ireland

Part of UK in Sweden

10th July 2013

Justice and Home Affairs: Opting Out to Opt In

The Home Secretary made an announcement to Parliament on 9 July on the UK’s policy towards Justice and Home Affairs in the EU.

There’s a lot of law and jargon involved, but I’ll try and keep it as simple as possible!

The bottom line is the UK government remains committed to working with EU partners to advance and protect shared interests in the JHA area.

The EU Treaties require the UK to decide by the end of next year which of the JHA measures currently in force it wants to take part in. If it doesn’t want to take part in all of them it needs to “opt out” of them all and then opt back in to those it wants to rejoin. That requires the European Commission and in some cases other EU states to agree.

Our Ministers have decided on the list of measures they want to continue taking part in, such as Europol and Eurojust and the Prisoner Transfer Framework. The measures cover co-operation in a range of areas, including to support the Schengen arrangements, even though we’re not a member of Schengen.

We will also use UK legislation to improve the working of the European Arrest Warrant. We think this is an important tool, but, like other countries, we have some concerns which we need to address, through our own laws and in the longer term working with others on reform, to make sure it works better.

The package of measures we want to continue working in represents all the key measures which we believe are important in maintaining the excellent co-operation between the UK and Sweden and to support practical co-operation between the Member States more generally, to combat cross border crime and to keep our countries safe.

It reflects a lot of discussion with EU partners and with the EU institutions and those discussions will now continue.

Our aim is to have all the necessary agreements in place in good time next year, so we can continue both to carry out the essential co-operation against crime, but also to work together to reform how the EU works so that our co-operation becomes even stronger and more relevant to the challenges we face today.

About Paul Johnston

Paul Johnston joined the UK Civil Service in 1990, working for the Ministry of Defence initially. He has served in Paris and New York and has also had a wide…

Paul Johnston joined the UK Civil Service in 1990, working for the Ministry of Defence initially.

He has served in Paris and New York and has also had a wide range of political and security roles in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Paul joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1993 as Desk Officer for Bosnia. As part of this role he was also Private Secretary to EU negotiator Lord Owen and his representative on Bosnia Contact Group.

His first foreign posting was to Paris in 1995-99 as Second Secretary Political. He was Private Secretary to the Ambassador and latterly part of the UK delegation to the Kosovo Rambouillet negotiations. Then he returned to London as Head of the Kosovo Policy Team, leading work on post-conflict policy in the EU, NATO, UN and G8.

Before his second overseas posting to New York in 2005, Paul held a variety of other EU policy and security appointments in London, such as Head of European Defence Section between 2000-01 and Head of Security Policy Department between 2002-04.

As Head of the Political Section in UKMIS New York, he advised on major policy issues for the UK on the Security Council and the UN World Summit, including the UK EU Presidency in 2005.

Paul returned to London in 2008 as Director, International Security for the FCO. He was responsible for policy on UN, NATO, European Security, arms control and disarmament, human rights and good governance.

Paul was British Ambassador to Sweden from August 2011 to August 2015 and then was Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO.

He was UK Ambassador to the EU for Political and Security affairs from 2017 to January 2020 and became Ambassador to Ireland in September 2020.

Follow Paul