Rebordering Europe: external boundaries and integration in the European Union

Abstract

The crises of the European Union and the geopolitical shifts in its international environment have generated a backlash against the post-Cold War 'debordering' of European integration. Whereas integration theories focus almost exclusively on the EU's internal boundaries and developments, this framework paper conceptualizes and theorizes integration as a process of internal debordering and external rebordering. It sketches the history of European integration in a bordering perspective and proposes general assumptions about the EU's bordering process. Accordingly, rebordering pressures result from widening boundary gaps at the EU's external borders, exogenous shocks to cross-border transactions, growing community deficits of debordering, and their politicization. Whether external rebordering succeeds and how it interacts with internal boundary formation, depends on EU-level boundary negotiations and the relative costs and benefits of external vs. internal rebordering.

EU Boundaries in the making: functionalist versus federalist

“…From a functionalist perspective, we expect EU agencies' taskspecific and problem-solving orientation to sustain fluid boundaries especially when interdependence with third country regulators is high. However, agencies operating in politicized sectors and/or enjoying considerable authority should face increasing control by EU central institutionswhich is one of three indicators of boundary formation next to 'closure' and 'congruence' with other EU boundaries (Schimmelfennig, 2021).…”

“…The second hypothesis assesses the role of politicization defined as a 'process involving increasing salience, polarisation of opinion and the expansion of actors and audiences involved in EU issues' (De Wilde et al, 2016, p. 3). According to Schimmelfennig (2021) the EU is undergoing a process of politicization whereby internal cohesion requires external demarcation. Strong politicization is supposed to strengthen the position of actors who champion a downscaling of EU integration, i.e., internal and possibly external re-bordering.…”

Special issue on ‘Shifting Borders of European (In)Securities: Human Security, Border (In)Security and Mobility in Security’

“…Geddes and Scholten 2016 ), in the context of European (dis)integration (e.g. Schimmelfennig 2021 ), this collection offers an innovative and unique combination of breadth, depth and coherence in understanding the EU’s migration crisis and its implications on human security at the European borders.…”

“…The issue of security at (European) borders has long attracted the attention of scholars taking different disciplinary angles and focusing, variously, on EU politics (Schimmelfennig 2021 ), Critical Security Studies (C.A.S.E Collective 2006 ) or Border Studies (Johnson et al 2011 ). Border crises can thus easily relaunch dormant scholarly debates or add fuel to the fire of ongoing discussions (Brambilla et al 2015 ; Dell’Agnese and Amilhat Szary 2015 ).…”

“…The migration crisis of the 2010s, in particular the so-called 2015 refugee crisis, has brought insecurities over mobility to the fore. Indeed, plural, competing insecurities lie at the heart of how and why the European Union (EU) and its member states turned migration into a crisis (Pallister-Wilkins 2016 ; Attinà 2018 ), why they have been unable to react to ‘creeping crises’ such as migration (Landström and Ekengren 2021 ), why re-bordering was the first reaction to the refugee crisis (Kriesi et al 2021 ) and how external bordering or re-bordering within the EU have come as a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic (Schimmelfennig 2021 ).…”