ABSTRACT
Critiques concerning the role of Justice and Home Affairs in the EU have been permanent and intrinsic to the different debates concerning terrorism, crime, asylum, migration and national identity. Certainly, from what has been considered as an original sin, it is clear that the evolutionist neo Darwinist vision of the specialists of EU studies has changed and that we are not, by far, the first to signal it. Debates in Europe, EU, Security, Policing and internal security are subtle and complex. From the 1980s onwards an impressive series of authors has emerged, and specific book collections on EU internal security, home affairs, criminal law, counterterrorism exist nowadays in different editors. Different from the previous EU studies, approaches regarding the rule of law and its importance for the EU have been at the core of the reflexivity in EU studies concerning internal security dimensions.
