4 The Frontiers of the Sovereign

Abstract

This chapter investigates one aspect of the thinking on sovereignty - that aspect of migration, border crossing, and border control - and looks into the questions of the allocation of competence and power in this respect between the member states and the European Union. It is motivated by the debates in the new member states about their loss of sovereignty upon accession to the European Union and intends to answer the question of whether an entity remains sovereign if it does not control its own borders and does not regulate migration across them. A related question is whether that entity which has the right and ability to control borders and regulate migration acquires the quality of a sovereign, it concentrates on the Hungarian case, but where appropriate its findings will extend to other new Central and Eastern European member states as well. Keywords: border control; border crossing; European member states; European Union; Hungarian case; migration; sovereignty