Posted May. 25/06
The 1381 kilometer border between East and West Germany — one of the most militarized borders in the world — was formed by chain-link fences, walls, turrets and mine fields. Today, it is proposed as part of the Iron Curtain Trail, a heritage and nature trail for hikers and cyclists.
While changes are seldom this dramatic, borders across Europe are being altered. Along with the European Union’s (EU) single market and single currency comes the right for citizens to move and reside freely throughout the EU’s “territory”. The result is a transformation in European borders that simultaneously increases mobility for EU citizens on the inside and restricts access for those on the outside.
- William Walters
“An external frontier has been created,” says William Walters, associate professor of political science. “Member states are lifting border controls with one another to facilitate mobility, but are strengthening the frontier of the EU to control who and what comes in.”
Under the Schengen Agreement, member states remove border controls and replace them with new forms of regulation such as cross-border police cooperation, mobile surveillance, information exchange and the gradual harmonization of migration and asylum policy. Walters calls it the networked (non)border, and describes it as a strategic node within a trans-national network of control.
On the flip side is the external frontier, a moving, expanding border around the EU where the perimeter states bear special responsibility for controlling movement into the Union.
“This creates an interesting system of governing territory,” says Walters. “A country such as France no longer has direct control over the national frontier. It has to worry about domestic security through the framework of the EU. That means it has an interest in the capacity of countries like Greece and how decisions are made there about who is a legitimate traveler.”
Walters is interested in the notion of legitimacy as the underside to the EU’s promotion of a borderless space. As EU citizens gain expanded mobility rights, there is an increasing focus on identifying and controlling the mobility of unwanted people.
“Illegal immigration is a contentious area,” says Walters, who prefers the term unauthorized migration. “The very naming of people as illegal is a political act that should not go unchallenged. How can a person be illegal? What kind of regime is it where a population can be deemed illegal?”
In his research, Walters approaches borders as a theoretical and practical problem. He looks at activists’, the media’s and artists’ portrayals of borders in examining how the frontier becomes a political motif, an issue and geographical space.
“States always have borders, but this prominence and control of the border is somewhat new in history,” he says. “The EU is the most recent transformation of the border, creating an institutionalized form of transnational citizenship with echoes of a gated community on an international level.”
As much as borders shift and transform, it is unlikely that they will become swathes of green space. Says Walters, “As long as we have a world marked by profound social and economic inequalities, we will have a desire for that line.”
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Fast fact…
By April 30, member states of the European Union (EU) were required to implement the directive on the right of citizens of the European Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the EU. The directive eliminates the need for EU citizens to obtain a residence card, introduces a permanent right of residence, defines more clearly the situation of family members and restricts the scope for the authorities to refuse or terminate residence of EU citizens from another member state.