EU Border Research Articles

Fusion of Heterogenous Sensor Data in Border Surveillance.

Wide area surveillance has become of critical importance, particularly for border control between countries where vast forested land border areas are to be monitored. In this paper, we address the problem of the automatic detection of activity in forbidden areas, namely forested land border areas. In order to avoid false detections, often triggered in dense vegetation with single sensors such as radar, we present a multi sensor fusion and tracking system using passive infrared detectors in combination with automatic person detection from thermal and visual video camera images. The approach combines weighted maps with a rule engine that associates data from multiple weighted maps. The proposed approach is tested on real data collected by the EU FOLDOUT project in a location representative of a range of forested EU borders. The results show that the proposed approach can eliminate single sensor false detections and enhance accuracy by up to 50%.

Is a clash coming when trade and climate meet at the border? The impact of the EU's carbon border adjustment on China's belt and road initiative

We empirically examine the effectiveness of EU Border carbon adjustment (BCA) in the context of BRI, by developing a hypothetical BCA scheme based on a multi-regional Input-Output model. We use various evaluation criteria such as sectoral coverage, economic condition of trade partners, compliance with trade regulations, and selection of Best Available Technology (BAT). Our analysis shows that the EU-BCA scheme covers 44% of the global traded emissions, of which 84% are generated in the BRI regions. However, the BAT principle and trade provisions reduce the coverage of BCA emissions for BRI regions, while assumptions about the carbon intensity of imports result in a further reduction. Our findings both cast serious doubt on BCA's ability to drive industrial decarbonisation and alleviate domestic producers' competitiveness concerns, and support the argument that EU-BCA may level the playing field for the EU's domestic market but may not address competitiveness concerns in other (non-EU) markets.

Over Land and Sea: NGOs/CSOs and EU Border Externalisation Along the Central Mediterranean Route

This paper looks at the Central Mediterranean Route, and assesses the relationship between migration-related NGOs/CSOs and EU border externalisation in this liminal, transnational, mobile spatial configuration. In so doing, it introduces the notion of anti-externalisation, with its variants counter-externalisation and counter-delocalisation, identifying relevant practices among NGOs/CSOs. The paper further explores connections between anti-externalisation activities on land and at sea, and analyses how the different spaces, places and contexts along the Central Mediterranean Route impact on the relationship between externalisation and NGOs/CSOs. The terrestrial and maritime environments, with their political and legal specificities, provide opportunities for and obstacles to both externalisation and anti-externalisation policies and practices. NGOs/CSOs can accept or oppose the relevant constraints, and exploit the place-specific opportunities. While some of these actors support externalisation, others oppose it through forms of counter-externalisation (resorting to the same spatial specificities of which externalisation policies take advantage) or counter-delocalisation (transnational, transborder and de-territorialised practices similar to those used by externalisation actors). The paper also underscores the itinerant character of NGOs/CSOs’ anti-externalisation action, which, like governmental control, adopts the route perspective and follows migrants’ trajectories over land and sea (also resorting to the air dimension to increase monitoring capacities) in order to support their right to mobility.

Bordering through othering: On strategic ambiguity in the making of the EU-Turkey refugee deal

This article scrutinises the identity-constitutive role of bordering practices by taking EU-Turkey cooperation on border control and refugee governance as a case. Using Foucault's notion of dispositif, this empirically oriented contribution critically reflects on the link between bordering, othering, and the reification of identities. More specifically, it undertakes a Critical Discourse Analysis of the EU border dispositif to elucidate how material structures and socio-spatial practices and discourses are mobilised in the processes of bordering. Throughout this article, special attention is paid to the strategic uses of ambiguity in refugee governance. Examining strategic ambiguity operative at the level of discourse, in institutional and legal structures, and routine daily practices, the multifaceted approach adopted in this study extends the analysis beyond the impact of strategic ambiguity on refugee's living experiences. The analysis demonstrates that strategic ambiguity relates to multiple domains of refugee governance and becomes a practical ideological tool, a normalising procedure for norm-breaking practices. Providing multiple layers of distinct but mutually reinforcing critical exploration, this study demonstrates how accumulated layers of knowledge, imageries, and historical narratives support institutional, legal and administrative practices in the ambiguous time/space of the EU-Turkey refugee deal. The analysis also exposes how the EU border dispositif translates difference into otherness, and contributes to the construction of European identity through the othering of refugees.

Article: EU Air Transport and the EU’s Environmental Agenda Struggle: A Leap of Faith or Can a CBAM Level the Playing Field?

Air transport, like any sector, must become more sustainable to combat climate change and protect the environment. The EU’s Green Deal sets out an ambitious environmental agenda to reach a climate-neutral continent by 2050. The ‘Fit for 55’ (FF55) legislative package provides sectoral measures, including air transport, to reduce emissions by 55% in 2030. When the additional costs required to comply with these environmental measures lead to competitive distortion, airlines and airports established in the EU and bound by the EU’s environmental policy are poised to be negatively affected. More importantly, ticket price increases may lead to ‘carbon leakage’ practices, where the reduction in emissions in one country leads to a rise in another. To mitigate these effects, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is presented as a possible solution. Applying an economic measure designed for the trade in goods, such as a CBAM, to trade in air services is, however, not as simple as it may seem, and its application beyond EU borders is politically sensitive and questionable legally. While the design of a CBAM for aviation is currently on the drawing table, this article maps the different interests at stake and considers the measure in the context of different legal regimes. Sustainability, Environment, EU Green Deal, Fit for 55, Competition, Carbon leakage, Carbon taxation, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)

Constructing Vulnerability and Victimhood at the EU Border

Constructing Vulnerability and Victimhood at the EU Border

YAPAY ZEKA VE AB MEVZUATI İÇİN YENİ ZORLUKLAR

Artificial Intelligence is one of the increasing topics of the last decade which is developed by the new technological changes. With the introduction of AI into our daily lives, discussions occurred on machine learning and the legal and ethical issues governing artificial intelligence. At that point, conflicting situations emerged regarding the use of AI technologies, especially data issues and bias. In 1995, European Data Protection Directive, EU Directive 95/46 was passed which regulated the processing of personal data within the borders of EU and provided data privacy and security standards for the individuals. The Directive was repealed on 25th May 2018 by General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which brings new concepts with more strict rules on the protection of personal data. Due to its legal nature, GDPR includes binding rules not only for EU countries but also for those who carry out all activities related to data processing inside EU. With the development of technology and depending on different IT techniques, data processing has changed and access to data became easier than ever. As a result of these technologies, the concepts of big data and artificial intelligence have been widely discussed and the development of new electronic devices and the implementation of more use of robots have brought some legal questions into practice. Recently, there are some new regulations that seem likely to enter into EU legislation in the next years, such as Artificial Intelligence Act, Data Govermance Act, Data Act, and European Health Data Space. There is uncertainty for the next years, about how new regulations will affect each other including GDPR. This paper aims to discuss artificial intelligence, including GDPR and the new legal developments in the EU legislation within the technological implementations.

Socioeconomic impacts of seafood sectors in the European Union through a multi-regional input output model

Fisheries, aquaculture, and seafood transformation sectors are components of the Green Deal roadmap promoting the transformation of the European Union into a resource-efficient, climate-friendly, and competitive economy. Whilst several studies have shown these sectors' socioeconomic national contributions, the method developed in this article aimed at demonstrating their importance at the European level and at showing the interlinkages that exist between countries, at the sub sectorial level. This article presents the development of a seafood European multi-regional input-output model methodology and its potentialities. The seafood sectors were disaggregated for each country from national input-output tables through a double disaggregation algorithm thanks to proxy input-output tables and STECF data, which highlighted the purchase of intermediate products at the STECF subsector level. The resulting disaggregated economic data for the seafood sectors were then linked to the multiregional turnover, gross value added, and jobs multipliers inverted from the FIGARO multiregional input-output table to obtain the indirect and induced socioeconomic impacts of the seafood sectors at the European level. The results showed economic leakages illustrated by the gross value-added multiplier. While shellfish farming, passive gear fishing, and active gear fishing, were the sectors in which the generated economic wealth remained the most in the European Union territory, a third of generated economic wealth by saltwater finfish farming and seafood transformations was captured outside the EU borders. Moreover, although France, the UK, and Spain are the main turnover contributors across sectors (except for micro and small seafood transformation companies), the impacts generated by the seafood industries greatly benefit the German economy that capture more economic wealth than it contributes across all sectors. This method provides a baseline scenario for further studies on the evaluation of socio-economic benefits of changes in practices such as circular economy emphasizing the interdependencies of supply chains at the European level.

Social Boundaries at the EU Border: Engaged Ethnography and Migrant Solidarity in Bihać, Bosnia–Herzegovina

ABSTRACT This paper is a reflexive examination of ethnographic positionality in the Bosnian border town of Bihać as it experienced a bottleneck of migrants and refugees from outside of Europe attempting to reach prosperous EU states by traversing the Balkan Route of irregular migration. Drawing from critical border studies and the principles of engaged ethnography, I approach the relational quality of life on the border as it shapes and also produces social boundaries that must be navigated also by researchers. The paper gives an account of my own active engagement in migrant solidarity activities and chronicles how this positioning came to be seen as my aligning myself with one distinct “side” of the social boundary between those working to support migrants in the community, whether as part of the official migration management response or as autonomous solidarians, on one hand, or those advocating the containment and expulsion of migrants, or “anti-migrant” positions, on the other. I show how this positioning helped to reveal the relational quality of social boundaries created through different ways of relating to the border.

“We are not Just the Border of Croatia; This is the Border of the European Union … ” The Croatian Borderland as “Double Periphery”

ABSTRACT This article addresses the double-layered border between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is simultaneously a nation-state and an external EU border and recently became a hotspot for irregular migration crossings. Based on social anthropological research in the region, the article explores the perspectives of the local population in the Croatian border region and asks how local inhabitants reflect on the changing qualities of their border and their positionings towards the EU, the Croatian center, neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina and migrants from the local South. It argues that the entanglements of the national and EU orders create a local “grey zone” in which various border drawing and border transgression processes take place simultaneously. It shows that this border has hardened, not only for irregular migrants from the global South, but also for the local inhabitants of the border area. At the same time, especially the younger local inhabitants grasp the new mobility possibilities associated with the EU accession of Croatia and take up work in other EU countries. This resultsin a double peripheralization of the region – by the nation state as much as by the EU border regime – and the disintegration and decline of the local community.

After entry: Humanitarian exploitation and migrant labour in the fields of southern Italy

Since the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, research on migration in the Euro-Mediterranean region has highlighted the entanglement of humanitarian and securitarian logics in the transformation of the EU border regime, with most attention focused on rescue and push-back operations at sea and systems of detention, selection and reception on land. This article moves beyond the point of arrival to examine how humanitarianism has also been implicated in the management of migrant labour in agriculture. Focusing on the tomato districts of southern Italy, the article interrogates the recent legislative and emergency measures devised to tackle labour violations and to facilitate the reproduction of the workforce. Measures have included the establishment of impromptu worker shelters run by humanitarian organizations and the recourse to criminal law to combat gangmasters and to assuage public opinion. By developing the conceptual framework of humanitarian exploitation, the article illustrates how humanitarian government is functional both to the regulation of the migrant workforce and to the maintenance of the industrial agri-food system.

Inclusion of Migrant and Refugee Children in the Education System: Exploring and Overcoming Language and Social Boundaries in the Una-Sana Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) has become strongly affected by migrants from the Global South who aim to migrate into the EU. However, due to the strengthening of the external EU border, migrants increasingly remain in B&H for a longer period making it a receiving country for migrants, 20% of whom are estimated to be children. Since education is a fundamental human right and the inclusion of migrant children in the education system of B&H was essential for their healthy psychophysical development, the Una-Sana Canton initiated activities for their inclusion in the spring of 2019. In this paper, we detail the activities of professors and students of the Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Bihać who taught Bosnian as a foreign language to the migrant children which was a basic prerequisite for their inclusion in the regular teaching process. The role of local students in facilitating inclusion of migrant children became especially evident. In addition to emphasizing the value of collaborative learning between teachers, local children and migrant children, this paper also explores psychological, cultural and social boundaries and barriers that shaped the process of language acquisition, inclusive education, and collaborative teaching and learning.

Shrinking the space for civil society: (De)Politicizing the obstruction of humanitarian NGOs in EU border management

ABSTRACT In recent years, populist radical right parties that openly contest the EU’s liberal consensus have acquired a reputation for restricting the space for civil society. Developing a novel conceptual framework of obstruction, this article examines how actors from the far right and the political mainstream obstruct humanitarian NGOs. We argue that while far right actors do so in a distinctly politicised way, mainstream EU actors and governments seek to obstruct rival NGOs in a depoliticised way, so as to act in line with the EU’s norms and values. Empirically, we test our argument of different styles of obstruction for the case of EU border management in the Central Mediterranean, where NGOs have played an important role in the domain of search and rescue (SAR). Our analysis shows that initially dominated by hardliners, most notably the Italian populist right-wing Conte I government, the obstruction of SAR NGOs politicised EU-NGO relations. Under the more mainstream Conte II government, in turn, obstruction continued but relied on a more depoliticised approach. In addition, EU institutions as well as other mainstream governments in relevant flag states such as Germany or the Netherlands also resorted to similar obstruction strategies.

Peripheralisation and externalisation of the EU asylum regime: implications for the right to seek asylum on the southeastern EU border islands

ABSTRACT Since the increase of refugee arrivals in 2015, the longstanding trend of using islands to confine asylum seekers at the EU borders became a prominent aspect of asylum governance. By looking at the southeastern border of the EU, as it has been constructed around the five Greek islands that host the EU’s hotspot approach, I demonstrate the implications of the European governance of asylum on the individual right to seek asylum. In doing so, I argue that there is a newly introduced process of peripheralisation of asylum. Under the term peripheralisation I describe the multidimensional process of demotion or downgrading of a socio-spatial unit about other socio-spatial units, i.e. the Greek mainland and the northern EU member states. Although the externalisation of asylum, is key to understanding the impact of the right to asylum, peripheralisation provides the necessary conceptual tool to explain the new architecture of confinement inside the territory of the EU and on the southeastern border islands. The main contribution of the article is providing an understanding of how the right to asylum is also hampered within the EU through the peripheralisation of the islands and by the externalisation of Turkey.

Gender, race, and crisis-driven institutional growth: discourses of ‘migration crisis’ and the expansion of Frontex

ABSTRACT Migration movements at the EU external borders are increasingly understood and governed through a logic of crisis that draws on gendered and racialised stereotypes of migrants and colonial Self-‘Other’ representations. These narratives of ‘migration crisis’ not only shape public discourse, but also inform institutional processes within the EU border security architecture, particularly the growth of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). Bringing critical border and migration studies in conversation with feminist postcolonial scholarship on crisis, we argue that gendering and racialisation underpin Frontex’s ‘crisis labelling’ that gives way to institutional claims for extended resources and competences. In an analysis of Frontex’s Annual Risk Analysis Reports (2010–2020), we identify four themes through which Frontex engages in crisis labelling on the basis of gendered and racialised stereotypes, dualisms, and postcolonial (self-)representations: migration as threat; the unknownness of migrants; the hierarchical creation of (non-)European spaces; and humanitarian concerns over vulnerable migrants. Through these themes, gender and race not only made migration intelligible as crisis but importantly justified demands for Frontex’s extension. These findings reveal how gender and race inform the institutional politics of defining and governing migration in ways that reproduce intersectional power relations and (post-)colonial legacies.

Border security and the digitalisation of sovereignty: insights from EU borderwork

ABSTRACT The European Union’s effort at controlling its external borders is an endeavour that increasingly relies on digital systems: from tools for information gathering and surveillance to systems for communicating between different agencies and across member states. This makes EU borders a key site for the politics of “digital sovereignty” – of controlling digital data, software and infrastructures. In this article, we propose a new understanding of how the concepts of digital and sovereignty interplay: sovereignty by digital means, sovereignty of the digital, and sovereignty over the digital. We do it by analysing three key manifestations within the EU’s borderwork: firstly, the expansion of EURODAC to include facial biometric data; secondly, the creation of the (future) shared Biometric Matching System (sBMS); and thirdly, the EU-funded West Africa Police Information System (WAPIS). These databases and systems exemplify three transformations of EU borderwork that invoke different dimensions of digital sovereignty: expansion of techniques for governing migration; interoperability of EU databases facilitating the internalisation of borders through domestic policing; and extra-territorialization of borderwork beyond the geographic limits of the EU.

Neither opaque nor transparent: A transdisciplinary methodology to investigate datafication at the EU borders

In 2020, the European Union announced the award of the contract for the biometric part of the new database for border control, the Entry Exit System, to two companies: IDEMIA and Sopra Steria. Both companies had been previously involved in the development of databases for border and migration management. While there has been a growing amount of publicly available documents that show what kind of technologies are being implemented, for how much money, and by whom, there has been limited engagement with digital methods in this field. Moreover, critical border and security scholarship has largely focused on qualitative and ethnographic methods. Building on a data feminist approach, we propose a transdisciplinary methodology that goes beyond binaries of qualitative/quantitative and opacity/transparency, examines power asymmetries and makes the labour of coding visible. Empirically, we build and analyse a dataset of the contracts awarded by two European Union agencies key to its border management policies – the European Agency for Large-Scale Information Systems (eu-LISA) and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). We supplement the digital analysis and visualisation of networks of companies with close reading of tender documents. In so doing, we show how a transdisciplinary methodology can be a device for making datafication ‘intelligible’ at the European Union borders.

Europe in the Woods: Reflections on the Situation at the Polish-Belarusian Border

For a few months in the summer and autumn of 2021, the eastern EU border became the focus of international media attention due to the political events accompanying the presence of refugees from the Middle East and Northern Africa. This ethnographic snapshot shows the idiosyncrasy of this migration route and reflects on the situation where people tried to help the refugees, despite the criminalisation of help by the Polish state. The reaction of the European Union (or rather a lack thereof) is also thematised. It is too early to expect thorough analyses of these processes, but it is important to document them. What is happening, although ephemeral and changing, is of crucial significance for our understanding of the everyday workings of EU bordering regimes.  

Loops of Violence(s) Within Europe’s Governance of Migration in Libya, Italy, Greece, and Belgium

Studies have reported alarmingly high rates of traumatic experiences for refugee populations. While nearly all refugees experienced trauma in their country of origin, a vast majority of those seeking protection abroad also face (extreme) violence during their journeys and once in the country of destination. By concentrating on the migratory experiences of about 300 unaccompanied minors that we approached in Libya, Italy, Greece, and Belgium, this article analyses how different forms of violence are inflicted on these young migrants while moving to Europe. By concentrating on personal accounts of (recurrent) interactions with the EU migration and border management tools, we reveal the structural violence within the day-to-day governance of migration. Often framed as unintended or accidental, the article discusses how violence is instead ubiquitous, as it is systematically inflicted on migrants—including unaccompanied minors—in the form of repeated series of violent events or “loops of violence.” Importantly, such manifestations of violence are perpetrated by key institutional and non-institutional actors in the “migration industry” who are (in)directly involved in managing migration both inside and outside of the EU. Conceptually, we rely on K. E. Dempsey’s political geography of the different typologies of violence within Europe’s governance of migration and asylum and use it to concentrate on key transitional phases/fractures in migratory trajectories—i.e., as unaccompanied young migrants (try to) cross international borders and legal boundaries.

Unaccompanied Adolescent Minors’ Experiences of Exception and Abandonment in the Ventimiglia Border Space

This article explores unaccompanied adolescent minors’ (UAMs) experiences of deterrent practices at internal EU borders while being on the move. Previous studies have acknowledged the securitisation of external borders through gatekeeping and fencing practices; however, there is a recent and continued renationalisation of internal EU borders by the member states. Like other migrants who are travelling irregularly, UAMs also often face harsh living conditions and repeated rights violations in border areas, regardless of their specific rights to protection and psychological needs. Research has called for a renewed focus on migrant children’s experiences as active agents at the borders, but until now studies exploring UAMs’ experiences at internal EU borders remain scarce. Drawing on Agamben’s notion of “legal exception,” we seek to explore how deterrent practices are confusingly intertwined and affect UAMs’ psychological wellbeing and subjectivities in the Ventimiglia border space. Participant observations and in-depth interviews conducted with UAMs at the French-Italian border provide unique insights into how these bordering practices affect migrant children’s legal and psychological safety and reshape their subjectivities. This contribution highlights UAMs’ conflicting needs and feelings of institutional “abandonment” when left without institutional welfare protection in the border space, on the one hand, and feeling pressured to act responsibly towards their relatives, on the other.