Borders and Populations in Flux: Frontex’s Place in the European Union’s Migration Management

Abstract

In May 2009, I attended a conference on migration and border management in Berlin, organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Titled ‘Fortress or Area of Freedom? Euro-Mediterranean Border Management’,¹ the conference juxtaposed the two predominant readings of Schengen Europe. This was achieved in a rather awkward way. While the invitation clearly addressed a rather critical audience which would agree with the thesis of ‘Fortress Europe’, the conference itself featured a lot of representatives of key organizations and institutions that are part of the project of building the ‘Area of Freedom, Security and Justice’ declared by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997. Not surprisingly, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the member states of the European Union (Frontex), was also present, represented by its Director of Operations Division, Klaus Rösler, who had only joined Frontex permanently less than a year before after having served for many years in the German Federal Police, the former police unit charged with the policing of the German borders. Due to the Schengen agreements, Germany had been rendered virtually borderless (apart from airports and harbours) and that particular police body has subsequently been transformed into a Federal Police force, taking the border inside while also being an active contributor to Frontex operations all over Europe.