The new European border and coast guard agency: pooling sovereignty or giving it up?

Abstract

In 2016, the European Parliament and the Council adopted a legislative act creating and regulating a new European Border and Coast Guard Agency. Its Article 19 states thatshould a Member State's failure to control its own borders jeopardize the collective effort to monitor the external borders of the Schengen Areathe new Agency could take over the management of border control operations in that Member-State. This transfer of power begs a crucial question regarding EU's conflict of sovereignties. First, this article identifies three paradigmatic conceptions of sovereignty (traditional, post-sovereignist, and posttraditional), and, second, it applies them to our case study to assess which conception provides the best explanatory model. We eventually argue that the post-traditional perspective proves the fittest to capture the current integration of the EU's external border management, best described as an institutional bricolage (by contrast with a grand architectonic design).

Symmetry in the Delegation of Power as a Legitimacy Criterion

“…Recent studies of the EU have tended to analyse the European border regime as a whole. Such analyses have often concluded that the European border regime is weak, intergovernmental, legalistic or merely co-ordinating (Börzel and Risse, 2018;den Heijer et al, 2016;Schimmelfennig, 2018). For instance, Genschel and Jachtenfuchs (2018) argue that 'the Schengen agencies (…) are fairly small, weak and intergovernmental in structure ' (p. 183).…”

“…1(2)). It was small, wielded a relatively limited budget and held no supranational powers (Deleixhe and Duez, 2019; Wolff and Schout, 2013).…”

Open borders and cross-border cooperation in regional development

“…It is this action that makes us think about the relationship between the concepts of territory, border and sovereignty. This process of externalizing borders is described in the context of a broader study of territoriality, which suggests how the fluctuating geography of borders redefines our understanding of territoriality and changes longstanding practices of sovereignty [37,38]. This is being done by many actors on the ground and represented by the United States and Canada, as well as other countries in the region, such as the European Union.…”

Frontex and the evolution of European border control

“…In this vein, Frontex and its risk analysis become a tool serving to justify European Commission's decision-making. Nevertheless, this seems quite problematic in the case of Frontex, as, though technocratic, it constitutes an agency that has enhanced competences in the sensitive area of border management, which relates to national state power and sovereignty (Deleixhe & Duez, 2019). It should be mentioned, that within this stream, Horii's work refers to a professional community by drawing attention to intra-organisational behaviour and institutional homogenisation.…”

“…Actually, since the 2016 Regulation, EIBM has become a shared responsibility between Frontex and member states. In this context, EU member states are obliged to contribute to the agency with staff and technical equipment (Carrera & den Hertog, 2016: 2), whereas the agency has the 'right to intervene' operationally on the ground of a member state irrespective of its consent (Regulation, 2016) impacting on traditional undertandings of sovereignty (Deleixhe & Duez, 2019).…”