Mit Urteil vom 6. September 2023 hat das Gericht der Europäischen Union (EuG) in erster Instanz erstmalig über eine Schadensersatzklage geflüchteter Personen gegen die Europäische Agentur für die ...Grenz- und Küstenwache (Frontex) entschieden und die Klage abgewiesen. Politische und zivilgesellschaftliche Vereinigungen sowie die Wissenschaft weisen schon länger auf systemische Mängel bei der Geltendmachung von Rechtsverletzungen gegenüber Frontex hin. Die Entscheidung des EuG perpetuiert diese Mängel, weil sie Bewertungsmaßstäbe nicht berücksichtigt, die aus menschenrechtlicher Sicht geboten sind. Eine dogmatisch überzeugende Integration dieser Maßstäbe in das Unionsrecht würde die Rechte geflüchteter Personen wahren und so das unionale Recht auf effektiven Rechtsschutz stärken.
Crisis narratives are widespread in migration and border governance globally, including in EUrope. In response, a body of scholarship that critically scrutinizes crisis narratives and imaginaries has ...emerged. Building on and further extending this scholarship, this article questions the dichotomy between ‘normality’ and ‘crisis’ in border governance. Focusing on four moments in which crises were declared in relation to migration and EUropean borders and their immediate aftermath, we examine how the European Union border agency Frontex framed these events through an analysis of its press releases, annual reports, and practices. In so doing, we argue that narratives pertaining to border practices beyond moments of ‘crisis’ invoke fears of uncontrolled mass migration of unruly ‘others’ as an ever-present possibility and perpetual threat to EUrope. Within this article, we propose a differentiation between protracted and acute crisis narratives. Focusing on the political work that these two narratives do in relation to EUropean border governance, we demonstrate that the interplay between these crises narratives has contributed to Frontex’s evolution and expansion over the last two decades while further consolidating the externalization and fortification of EUropean borders.
The identification of migrants and the creation of data identities lies at the core of datafied forms of migration and border control. In recent years, Frontex has made identification to one of its ...key tasks and conducted so-called screenings in many EU member states. Yet only little is known about the screening materials in use. Based on an ethnographic inquiry of Frontex' data practices, this paper analyses Frontex booklets, dossiers, questionnaires, images, and forms and studies how they structure the situation of identification. Making use of research in science and technology studies and recent research on suspicion and credibility assessment, it argues that those materials not only compile information but work as socio-material devices of suspicion that render migrants into fraudsters and translate peoples' actions, stories, and performances into accounts of truthfulness or deceit. As devices, they frame cases, script interactions, code statements, create stigmata of belonging, and produce purified accounts, and thus enact multiple forms of suspicion. The paper concludes with a critical reflection about the credibility of those materials and speculates about how devices could be designed otherwise.
This article looks at securitization/humanitarianization dynamics in the EU external sea borders to track and critique the substantial transformation of the role played by human rights in the ...Mediterranean. Mapping the evolution of maritime engagement up to the ‘refugee crisis’, it is revealed how the invocation of human rights serves paradoxically to curtail (migrants') human rights, justifying interdiction (‘to save lives’), and impeding access to safety in Europe. The result is a double reification of ‘boat migrants’ as threats to border security and as victims of smuggling/trafficking. Through a narrative of ‘rescue’, interdiction is laundered into an ethically sustainable strategy of border governance. Instead of being considered a problematic (potentially lethal) means of control, it is re‐defined into a life‐saving device. The ensuing ‘rescue‐through‐interdiction’/‘rescue‐without‐protection’ paradigm alters the nature of human rights, which, rather than functioning as a check on interdiction, end up co‐opted as another securitization/humanitarianization tool.
The European Border and Coast Guard Agency plays an important role in the protection of the external borders and the security of the Member States of the European Union and the countries associated ...with the Schengen free trade area. The Schengen area without internal borders is only sustainable if the external borders are effectively secured and protected. The threat of uncontrolled movement and illegal migration, and the associated dangers, is one of the current security threats and new challenges for the Member States of the European Union. Frontex, as an Agency of the European Union, is financed from the Union budget, including contributions from individual countries, and has the ambition to employ almost 1000 people in 2021. The article provides an insight, including a short historical excursion, on the role of the European Border and Coast Guard in the security of the European Union nowadays.
How is undocumented migration typically mapped in contemporary cartography? To answer this question, we conduct an iconological dissection of what could be seen as the epitome of the cartography on ...undocumented migration, the map made by Frontex - the EU's border agency. We find that, rather than a scientific depiction of a migratory phenomenon, its cartography peddles a crude distortion of undocumented migration that smoothly splices into the xenophobic tradition of propaganda cartography - and stands in full confrontation with contemporary geographical scholarship. We conclude with an urgent appeal for more scientifically robust, critical and decidedly more creative cartographies of migration.
This article interrogates the development of the European Border and Coast Guard (Frontex) and its implications for the EU's approach to border control coordination. Through the theoretical lens of ...the principal-agent model, it investigates information asymmetry and friction between stakeholders in the implementation of Frontex's increased competence at the borders. The findings of this article show that the development of Frontex has led to growing incentives for the EU's supranational institutions to steer the agency to pursue their individual objectives, creating new supranational elements in EU border management.
An ‘Impossible Trinity’? Luisa Marin; Mariana Gkliati; Sarah Tas
Verfassungsblog,
09/2022
2366-7044
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In international macroeconomics, the term ‘Impossible Trinity’ refers to three elements, which are impossible to coexist. In this Verfassungsblog series, we examine whether the EU’s external border ...policy, Frontex and the rule of law constitute such an ‘Impossible Trinity’, or whether they can be reconciled with appropriate accountability mechanisms.
This Article deals with the potential responsibility of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, for human rights violations, through the case studies of the Greek-Turkish and the ...Hungarian-Serbian border, where systematic human rights violations have been well-reported. Such violations are studied in the context of the activity of Frontex in border surveillance and return operations in Hungary since 2016, and the Rapid Border Intervention launched in Greece in 2020. This Article looks, in particular, into the indirect responsibility of the agency through assisting the host state in the commission of a violation, and into its direct responsibility due to exercising a degree of effective control over seconded agents. What is more, it notes the shift after the 2019 amendment of the EBCG Regulation from complicity, as the main form of responsibility for Frontex, to direct responsibility. This shift is brought by the expansion of the powers and competences of the agency, especially with respect to the standing corps of 10.000 border guards, including the agency's own statutory staff, increased use of own large assets (aircrafts, vessels), and an increased role in return operations. The author further reflects upon the role of EU agencies in a model of "mixed government", in ensuring the balance between supranationalisation and intergovernmentalism, and amongst the interests of EU citizens, Member States, and European integration. The conclusion is drawn that, no such balance can be struck before human rights, amongst the core EU values, are properly upheld, and before suitable accountability safeguards are set.
A Contested Crisis Steinhilper, Elias; Gruijters, Rob J
Sociology (Oxford),
06/2018, Letnik:
52, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Death and suffering of migrants at Europe’s Mediterranean Sea border has become one of the defining moral and political issues of our time. While humanitarian organizations argue that deaths result ...from Europe’s policy of exclusion and closure, those employing a deterrence-oriented narrative have argued for even stricter border controls. Perhaps because of its contentious nature, the debate is often devoid of systematic information on the drivers and dynamics of border deaths. This study contributes to our understanding of border deaths in the Mediterranean region in three ways: it describes and evaluates recent data sources on migration and mortality; it provides a descriptive statistical analysis of absolute and relative mortality risks between 2010 and 2016; and it assesses the relationship between European border policy and border deaths. Our findings challenge the dominant deterrence-oriented policy narrative and highlight the failure of European authorities to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
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