ABSTRACT
The etymological meaning of polizei or police implies binding rules given for the benefit of the community (gute polizey). What was beneficial was not based on democratic decision-making rationality, but on the expectations one might reasonably have of a good prince. 1 Today, the citizens’ acceptance of the democratically negotiated powers of the state in criminal matters grants legitimacy to state power. This in turn reinforces sovereignty translated into the capacity of the state to impose power. 2 Thus there is a demarcated territory, an ultimate sovereign, and a people constituting the sovereign. The people, a nation, comes into being in various ways: one might be a common perception of what constitutes risks and dangers that bind people together through the creation of insider/outsider categories 3 . A common perception that significant risks and dangers are beyond the capacity of the nation-state to handle, may lead citizens to lose trust in the national sovereign as a supplier of security. Sovereign power may have less to do with territory than with authority. 4 Hence it is not impossible that the EU could be a sovereign, a good prince, if it is competent to carry out the citizens’ will and create security. Assuming there are some security threats, such as cross-border crimes, for which the EU is a better criminal justice actor than nation-states might be, does the notion of the EU as a sovereign criminal justice actor present any problems?
