Border Management And Migration Control In The Eu

Abstract

This report is the first deliverable of Work Package (WP2) Border and Migration Controls of the Horizon 2020 Project RESPOND -- Multilevel Governance of Mass Migration in Europe and Beyond. RESPOND explores the multilevel governance of migration in countries of origin, transit and migration, focusing on the Eastern Mediterranean route. WP2 addresses border management and migration control, including European Union (EU) and domestic legal regimes, policy developments since 2011, the implementation of border management and migration control policies by EU member states and third countries, and how refugees and migrants experience and respond to the EU border management regime. The aim of the report is to provide an overview of the current EU border management and migration control regime in order to contextualise further research on domestic regimes and their implementation. It outlines the key components of the European Union framework on border management and migration controls. It also presents an overview of historical developments, an analysis of discursive aspects of border and migration control on the level of Union institutions between 2011 and 2017, as well as a detailed description of control measures in the different layers of the European Union external border. We use the term border management to refer to the EU’s ensemble of legislation, policies, implementation practices, institutions, and actors that are concerned with defining, conceptualising, and policing of the external border of the member states of the European Union. We use the term migration control to capture modes of control that might fall outside the scope of border management, especially as defined by the 2016 European Border and Coast Guard Directive. We elaborate on these definitional issues in Concepts and Definitions section. We then move on to a detailed analysis of these policies and their legal codification and key legislative and policy developments since 2011. We conclude the report with a discussion of the complexities involved in researching this intersection of various legal frameworks, policy fields and implementation challenges in connection to the larger process of Europeanisation.