Sarah Wolff

Border management in the Mediterranean: internal, external and ethical challenges

Framed in the Justice and Home Affairs external dimension (JHAE) literature that argues that the European Unions (EU) internal security has become an objective of European foreign policy, this article offers an analysis of the institutionalization of border management in the Mediterranean. Investigating the role of Frontex, the European border management agency, this article reveals that border management in the Mediterranean is a fragmented policy that presents internal and external challenges. First, at an internal level, border management remains a sensitive issue where the principles of burden sharing and solidarity between EU member states are difficult to operationalize. Second, at an external level, effective border management is dependent on cooperation with EUs neighbours, as the Spanish-Moroccan case demonstrates. Lastly, along with these internal and external challenges, border management raises some crucial issues about the opportunity of externalizing surveillance technologies to authoritarian regimes.

The External Dimension of Justice and Home Affairs: A Different Security Agenda for the EU?

This article was downloaded by: [Ingenta Content Distribution - Routledge]On: 18 February 2009Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 791963552]Publisher RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

The Mediterranean Dimension of EU Counter‐terrorism

Abstract Key to the Mediterranean dimension of the European Union’s internal security is the fight against terrorism, which has captivated most of European policy making in recent years. Counter‐terrorism initiatives aimed at the Mediterranean region have multiplied, taking the form of technical assistance, funding and training. One striking feature of this recent evolution is the use of first pillar and second pillar instruments to achieve objectives of the EU’s internal security. The development of a foreign policy dimension to the EU’s counter‐terrorism policy towards neighbouring countries, in particular, is one of the aspects through which the external dimension of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) has materialized. This article proposes to investigate the input and output dimensions of the EU’s counter‐terrorism policy in the Mediterranean. For that purpose, an institutionalist approach casts some light on the weight of history, critical junctures, the role of cultural frame and of the persisting differences between the member states, to build up a common counter‐terrorism policy. Then, turning to the second level of analysis, which investigates the ‘external’ actors that are the Mediterranean partners, an overview of counter‐terrorism cooperation reveals that, whereas multilateral actions have blossomed, the thrust of the cooperation occurs at a bilateral level, mainly between some EU member states and some of their ex‐colonial powers.

The Politics of Negotiating EU Readmission Agreements: Insights from Morocco and Turkey

AbstractThe subject of this article is the politics of instrumentation of eu Readmission Agreement (eura) negotiations with Morocco and Turkey. Refusing to sign an eura for more than ten years, they share a similar position of ‘hard bargainers’. Recently though a ‘negotiation turn’ took place, Turkey initialling an eura in June 2012 and Morocco committing to sign an eura within the framework of a Mobility Partnership (mp) in June 2013. Unpacking the role of eu incentives and third countries’ preferences, this article reveals that beyond the function of this instrument to co-opt third countries in eu’s fight against irregular migration, a series of obstacles forced the eu to revise the design of eura and to take into account domestic and regional factors. This article engages with the meanings and representations carried by euras in third countries and implications for the logic of consequences and appropriateness within the framework of EU external migration policy.

Frontex as Agency: More of the Same?

Abstract Building on the notion of ‘agencies’ as non-majoritarian instruments to professionalize (or ‘depoliticisize’) EU policy-making, this article examines whether the introduction of Frontex as an agency instrument in 2004 implied a major change in the management of the EUs border control compared to the earlier network. Even though formal evaluations have acknowledged the positive achievements of Frontex, this article questions whether those assessments actually helps us to understand better the added value of Frontex as agency. To do so, the article draws from a legitimacy-based model to assess the added value of the agency. Input and output legitimacy are being assessed through a number of accountability mechanisms. The model is applied to predecessor of Frontex (SCIFA + /PCU) and to Frontex. We conclude that the choice for the agency instrument was not sufficiently argued and that the design of Frontex hardly offers the advantages of the agency structure.

The Rule of Law in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: Monitoring at Home What the European Union Preaches Abroad

Most of the research on the rule of law in the European Union focuses on its external dimension. However, to be a credible rule of law promoter abroad, rule of law standards at home need to match what the EU preaches abroad. This article assesses developments regarding the strengthening of the rule of law in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice heralded in 2009 as one of the objectives of the Stockholm Programme. Two mechanisms had been envisaged. First, a new peerreview mechanism, based on a Dutch initiative, would be introduced. Second, ambitions to improve the monitoring culture of Justice and Home Affairs instruments found some support in the strengthening of the relationship between the Council of Europe and the European Union. Not only the negotiations on the EU’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights should improve the rule of law and mutual trust, but the EU could also better make use of the existing monitoring instruments of the Council of Europe. Inter-institutional tensions over the implementation of JHA policies, as well as turbulences surrounding the EU’s accession to the ECHR have nonetheless come to light and are explored in this article.

Border Management in the Mediterranean

Border management policies in the Mediterranean1 are the result of Member states’ and EU initiatives, hence reflecting the schizophrenic nature of a policy caught between an inherently sovereignty-related field of action and an increasingly communautarized issue. The development of Mediterranean border management at the EU level is directly related to the reality of irregular migrants risking their lives on makeshift boats, cayocas and pateras, to come and live the ‘European dream’. The EU, confronted with the arrival of those migrants and their deaths on the Spanish tourist beaches or on Maltese tuna nets, is striving to find a collective solution to common problems. However, as this chapter demonstrates, while all EU Member states agree on tackling this issue, only a minority of them are willing to espouse the concepts of ‘burden-sharing’ and ‘solidarity’. The creation of Frontex, in 2004, acutely revealed the gap between Member states’ preferences and the difficulties encountered in developing a Mediterranean dimension to border management. In the light of the arrival of more than 20,000 Tunisian migrants in Italy between January and April 2011, and the Franco-Italian row over the deliverance of short-term residence permits to those migrants, who came mainly for economic reasons, a rational-choice historical institutionalist interpretation is again highly relevant.

EU religious engagement in the Southern Mediterranean: Much ado about nothing?

Abstract Since the Arab uprisings, religious engagement is central to EU relations with the Southern Mediterranean. Given that the EU is a liberal-secular power, this article investigates why and how the EU is practising religious engagement and whether it is a rupture with past EU modalities of engagement in the region. The main finding is that EU religious engagement constitutes both a physical and ontological security-seeking practice. This is illustrated in three steps. First, EU’s physical security is ensured by the promotion of state-sponsored forms of religion in Morocco and Jordan that aim at moderating Islam. Second, the framing of religion as an expertise issue in the EEAS and European diplomacies reinforces EU’s self-identity narrative as a secular power. This self-identity is, however, subject to politicization and framing contestation through the case of Freedom of Religion or Belief and the protection of Christian minorities in the Arab world. Overall, this article finds that EU religious engagement is conducive to selective engagement with some religious actors, which could potentially lead to more insecurities and polarization in the region.

The Negotiation and Contestation of EU Migration Policy Instruments. A Research Framework.

AbstractThis article develops a research framework for the analysis of the politics of migration policy instruments. Policy instruments are seen as living instruments; they evolve and develop similar to moving targets. A scholar interested in this field of research may focus either on the establishment of a given instrument or on its use. The question of an instrument’s design relates to the policy transfer literature focusing on how certain policies move from one setting to another. In the context of a policy transfer, actors from the other – ‘receiving’ – institutional setting negotiate and, potentially, contest or reinterpret a policy instrument. The evolution of policy instruments once adopted in a specific institutional context is a second area of interest. The original goals can be diluted throughout the implementation process notably due to tensions between intergovernmental and supranational actors, or sticky institutionalization, which is characterized by path-dependencies. Often the choice of new instruments derives from an inefficiency or loss of credibility of past instruments. This editorial therefore seeks to make a twofold contribution: first it investigates the added-value of a policy instrument approach to the study of migration; second it furthers research on the external dimension of EU migration policy.

The Mediterranean Dimension of EU’s Internal Security

In a post-Cold War context, the perceptions of European security have evolved, threats have become de-territorialized and the concept of borders has been reconceptualized. Globalization and the transnationalization of threats have contributed to the blurring of internal and external borders. Today borders are increasingly the product of a social construction, a process that is conducive to the rise of new security communities and new frontiers between insiders and outsiders.1 Geographical entities, such as Europe, define their borders according to their security perceptions and practices, which can result in the emergence of new security discourses, which include ‘soft security’ issues such as energy, human rights, migration or organized crime.2