Building on François Duchêne’s concept ‘civilian power Europe’, a growing number of scholars have asserted the EU’s distinciveness as an international actor. This has resulted in a lively debate among supporters of the thesis and sceptical scholars. What this literature has failed to investigate so far is the extent to which the EU is (or is not) regarded as a distinctive world power by other international actors. This is precisely what this article aims to do. Building on the results of a survey on The External Image of the European Union, coordinated by the author in the framework of the Network of Excellence GARNET, the article sums up the prevalent images of the EU in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Japan, India and South Africa, and at the level of NGOs and Commission delegations.
Issue, 'migration' is considered a broad category encompassing several categories of people who reach the territory of a foreign state to stay for a relatively long time. Hence no distinction is made (unless explicitly stated) on the basis of the reason for the individuals' flight from their own country (economic or security-related).
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The EU has been built on the idea that enhanced transnational relations and free movement of persons between Member States have a positive impact on international cooperation and hence on security.However, what we have witnessed in the past decade is a growing pressure to limit mobility, reinvigorated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Calls for a strengthened Schengen area go together with the externalization of European borders and the involvement of third states, but also with the reintroduction of border functions between Member States. Inside the EU free movement has been reduced if not stopped for fear of terrorism, irregular migration or the spread of viruses. Besides this, new techniques to govern mobility have emerged, affecting the role and meaning of borders. This article focuses on three dynamics of this process that entail a transformation of sovereignty, territoriality and rights: the externalization of borders, internal rebordering and logistification. The article argues that by focusing on what borders do rather than discussing what borders are, we can observe a more comprehensive transformation of the meaning and practices of borders within, around and outside the EU, a transformation that goes beyond the Westphalian imaginary and the simplistic alternative between hard and soft borders.
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