EU co-operation in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) is where EU Member States work together to tackle cross-border problems like terrorism, organised crime and illegal immigration. It is also delivering greater legal certainty for UK citizens and businesses, making it easier for people to live, work and do business across the EU.

Cross-border problems require international solutions, and in an increasingly globalised world, EU co-operation on JHA is delivering practical, concrete benefits for UK citizens:

• The European Arrest Warrant allows the UK to quickly extradite criminals and terrorists from other EU Member States without a lengthy extradition process.
• Exchanging criminal records, a new measure, will help make sure that offenders are not given unduly lenient sentences because the courts did not know of a previous conviction.
• The proposal for the transfer of sentenced prisoners will allow the UK to transfer prisoners to their state of habitual residence to serve their sentence.
• The EU Global Approach to Migration is facilitating co-operation between source, transit and destination countries to combat illegal immigration.
• And the European Small Claims Procedure will introduce a low cost and much simpler way of taking legal action against foreign businesses.

Home Office website
Ministry of Justice
European Commission website