Council Decision of 1 December 2014 concerning the United Kingdom's wish to take part in some of the provisions of the Schengen acquis in the field of police cooperation and judicial cooperation in criminal matters and amending Decisions 2000/365/EC and 2

Full title: "Council Decision of 1 December 2014 concerning the notification of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of its wish to take part in some of the provisions of the Schengen acquis which are contained in acts of the Union in the field of police cooperation and judicial cooperation in criminal matters and amending Decisions 2000/365/EC and 2004/926/EC"

Making use of the specific provisions of Article 10 of Protocol 36 attached to the Treaty, the UK in July 2013 decided to use its right to exercise a block 'opt-out', as of 1 December 2014, from all EU acts adopted under the former third pillar which had not been amended since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. On 20 November 2014, the UK notified its wish to opt-back-in to 35 of these instruments.  In practice, that means that the Council, acting unanimously, decides on the re-participation of the UK to ex-third pillar measures related to the Schengen acquis, while the Commission decides on the UK's re-participation in the non-Schengen ex-third pillar acts.

The six "ex-third pillar" measures related to the Schengen acquis and object of this Council Decision include the chapters of the Schengen Convention on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters and the Schengen Information System (SIS II, which is the police/justice part of the Schengen data base).

In order to help clarifying the situation, a list of ex-third pillar acquis which ceases to apply to the UK as of 1 December, as well as a list of ex-third pillar acquis which has been "lisbonised" for the UK (i.e. amended post-Lisbon by an act in which the UK is bound) have been published in the Official Journal for information.