Protecting Citizens, Securitising Outsiders? Consular Affairs and the Externalisation of EU’s Internal Security

Abstract

For the past two decades, the Member States of the European Union (EU) have been developing cooperation in the sphere of consular affairs. As crises of the Arab Spring highlighted, citizens of the Union are increasingly vulnerable and in need of protection globally, prompting the Member States to strengthen common provisions, and the EU institutions developing informal roles in protection of EU citizens. European visa policy, on the other hand, emerged as a result of the expanding Schengen area. The removal of internal borders led to creation of common management of external borders, of which visa policy has become an essential part. For example, in the Eastern neighbourhood, visa policy is increasingly linked to EU conditionality, with third countries implementing far-reaching public security and border management reforms, thus externalising the borders of Fortress Europe to third countries and their institutions before a process of visa liberalisation can take place. This chapter will analyse the nature of Europe’s shifting borders as a result of increasing cooperation in consular affairs, namely in consular protection and visa policy. On one hand, the EU’s cooperation in consular protection has highlighted the need to provide security to EU citizens across the globe, whilst, on the other, EU’s visa policy is increasingly shifting the security of its external borders to its neighbourhood and beyond. In both instances, third countries are becoming the scenes of European border externalisation and management, albeit, for two different reasons—to protect EU citizens, and to manage the flow of migrants into Europe.