Externalization: From a Line to an Area, from Entry Control to Exit Control | Zuwanderung, Flucht und Asyl: Aktuelle Themen | bpb.de

With the development of the Schengen Agreement, the ministries in the Schengen states responsible for border management have gradually expanded the border line to become a border area. This means that the borders are no longer only surveilled at the line of demarcation between two states, but that the surveillance reaches further into the interior of the country and in doing so becomes increasingly less directly concerned with the border line. In 1998, the Austrian presidency placed this development on the agenda and suggested the concept of "concentric circles". Although this concept was not adopted, its basic idea of the Schengen states being a core with high border security influenced the configuration of European border policies. Neighboring states and other more distant states group around this core like concentric circles, each acting as a buffer for the core and securing it.

Freedom of Movement within the "Hard Core"

The Schengen states stand in the center of European border policies — persons are not controlled at their common border checkpoints. However the Schengen external borders are intensively surveilled according to common standards. The legal basis for this is the so-called Schengen Borders Code (Regulation 562/2006). This piece of legislation applies not only for citizens of the Schengen or EU states, but for everyone legally staying in this core, that is, in the Schengen area.

The freedom of movement of persons without controls was originally at the heart of the Schengen cooperation from which border policy has developed. This freedom of movement without controls is broadly considered one of the most important achievements of European integration. In recent years, however, it can be observed that this achievement has been in danger. In 2011, several Schengen states have demanded to facilitate the reintroduction of controls at their common borders. The incident that spurred this discussion was that Italy had given a large number of residence permits on humanitarian grounds to refugees who had crossed the Mediterranean, which enabled them to then travel further on into France.

Border and Immigration Control Measures in the "Extended Core"

Surrounding the "hard core" is the extended core, which includes the EU states that are not members of the Schengen Agreement. These are on the one hand, states that do not wish to participate such as Great Britain or Ireland, and on the other hand EU states that have not (yet) joined the Schengen territory, such as Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus and the new Member State, Croatia (as of July 2013). There are still border controls for people crossing into these EU countries. At the same time, these states largely carry out the measures designed for a common security of EU external borders.

Entry Conditions and Control Measures

The EU differentiates categories of incoming third-country nationals according to the form and legal status of their entry:

• business travelers or tourists, who, just like EU citizens, are allowed to enter and stay for 90 days without prior authorization, for example citizens of Singapore, the USA or Chile;

• business travelers or tourists who need entry authorization (a visa);

• persons who flee to the EU because their safety is threatened and they therefore request protection (asylum);

• persons who come from a state obliged to obtain a visa and anticipate that they will not be granted one and therefore enter illegally.

The EU allows special control measures for each of these groups, which are explained in more detail in the following paragraphs.

Visas

In order to be able to keep the internal borders open, the EU states agreed on common conditions to entry into their common territory, that is, in EU territory. For one, this includes a determination of those states whose citizens must apply for a visa if they wish to enter Schengen/EU territory as well as a list of those who are exempt from the visa requirement.

From 2004 onwards, the EU had the Visa Information System (VIS) developed in order to check whether a person has already applied for a visa before. The VIS serves as a hindrance for so-called "visa shopping". Visa shopping occurs when nationals from third countries apply for visas in multiple EU countries as a result of previously being refused a visa in another EU Member State. The VIS, however, can be used not only by immigration offices such as the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), but now also by security agencies such as the police thanks to the Decision “concerning access for consultation of the VIS by designated authorities of Member States and by Europol for the purposes of the prevention, detection and investigation of terrorist offences and of other serious criminal offences” (VIS Decision) which entered into force on 1 September 2013.

Asylum

People who are persecuted in their country have the right to apply for asylum in the EU (Directive 2011/95/EU). The decision on whether an asylum seeker is granted asylum is made on an individual basis. In 1990, the Dublin Convention specified which EU country was responsible for processing an asylum application, at which time the EC countries agreed that the country into which the asylum seekers first entered would assume responsibility for the processing This arrangement was intended by the EC to help end the “asylum shopping” that was observed in several EC Member States.

To determine whether an asylum seeker has already previously submitted an application, the EC implemented the EURODAC database (lat. dactylos — finger), which stores the fingerprints of every asylum seeker. If a person submits an application for asylum, he or she is required to be fingerprinted. The authorities are then able to determine through the system whether that person has already filed for asylum in any other EC (today EU) country. If this is the case, or if the authorities can prove that the asylum seeker entered the EU via another country, then he or she is "transferred" back to that country. An exception here at the moment is Greece. The German federal government decided in 2011, before the Federal Constitutional Court had decided on a pending claim, not to send asylum seekers that had entered via Greece back for the asylum process given the inhuman conditions that the asylum seekers had to live under in Greece.

Border and Immigration Control Measures in the "Neighboring Zones"

All neighboring states of the EU as well as all non-EU countries are designated as third countries. This includes countries with accession prospects as well as those without. While safe third countries and the country of origin regulation are measures of immigration control, the EU also directly involves its neighbors in border management and in doing so creates a buffer zone. The idea behind this is to win over its neighbors to control and surveil their borders with the EU according to EU standards. The neighboring countries are supposed to prevent the illegal entry of migrants and criminals who try to enter the EU through these third countries. This involves a kind of trade in which both parties to the treaty perform a service. The service returned by the EU looks differently depending on the status of the neighboring country:

Border regimes with neighbors with the prospect of accession

For EU neighboring countries with the prospect of accession, this trade is clearly defined. Having the prospect of accession means that the country receives signals from the EU that it will one day have the opportunity to become an EU Member State.

Under the term pre-accession instruments the EU and its Member States offer the accession candidates numerous instruments, or forms of assistance for the preparation of their accession to the EU. These instruments are composed of monetary support, competencies, and facilities. Using the example of the last large EU enlargement in 2004, this system of instruments can be briefly outlined as follows:

Monetary support: Accession states were supported by the EU through the PHARE program . In addition, between 2004 and 2006 the acceding states received 961 million euro of special funding known as the Schengen Facility to upgrade their border controls.

Capacities: The EU provides the means with which the EU Member States can support candidate states in preparing for accession through so-called Twinning. These Twinning measures are partnerships of an EU country with a candidate country to support the building up of border security according to Schengen standards. The measures are chiefly made up of equipment assistance (e.g. devices and facilities) and training, of which EU countries have made active use and not least, this has given them the opportunity to make their own security concepts, methods and technology accessible to the central and eastern European countries, all which differ considerably from those of the other EU countries.

Facilities: Through the program "Argo", the EU supported not only the training of border management experts, but also the construction of operative centers for the securing of the border.

Germany was especially involved in the events leading up to the "large round of enlargement" of ten central and eastern European countries in 2004. Between 1992 and 2004, the federal government supported Poland in strengthening its border security with a total of 6 million euro.

Border regime with neighbors without prospects of accession: European Neighboring Policies and Mobility Partnerships

Firstly, there are also European countries that do not (yet) have any prospect of accession (for example Belarus, the Ukraine, or the Republic of Moldova) and then there are the southern neighboring states of the EU--the Mediterranean countries . The EU cannot return service for these countries in the form of an accession prospect, so instead offers these partners a "privileged relationship".

These "privileged relationships" were initially established in the so-called European Neighborhood Policy . This means that the EU grants financial support to these countries in order to enable them to:

1. Set up democratic structures and good governance,

2. Reform laws and establish capacities in the administration, and

3. Implement measures for the reduction of poverty.

Furthermore, the EU makes agreements with these states to facilitate the issuances of visas for their citizens and to deepen trade relations with them. In return, these neighboring countries intensify controls at their own external borders and commit to taking back third country nationals who have been expelled from the EU (readmission agreements).

Surveillance of the Entire Mediterranean Region: EUROSUR

For the time being, the last stage of the geographic expansion of border surveillance is the EU’s plan to monitor its external borders in the Mediterranean Sea with satellites from space. The surveillance system is called Eurosur and is managed by Frontex. Since December 2013 it has been operable in EU states with external borders shared with Eastern Europe or on the Mediterranean Sea. In the other countries (Germany, among others) it will begin operation a year later.

Eurosur is a pan-European border surveillance system that, according to the EU, pursues three objectives:

1. Reduce the number of illegal entries into the EU,

2. Reduce the number of migrants who drown on their passage over the sea, and

3. Increase the internal security of the EU by preventing serious crime at the external borders of the Schengen area.

Frontex will use Eurosur to collect data from the satellite surveillance of EU borders as well as ship reporting systems such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS) and the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) as well as from both manned and unmanned drones. Every EU country is supposed to establish a national coordination center to gain an overview of the situation at its own external borders. Frontex takes all the national overviews and data to then create a European Overview which contains information on "incidents concerning irregular migration, transnational crime and crisis situations". Moreover, Frontex puts together a "common pre-frontier intelligence picture". The "pre-frontier" area refers to the geographical area on the other side of the external borders of the EU Member States; an area that is not included in a national border surveillance system. The estimated costs for Eurosur for the period 2014-2020 run at 339 million euro. Eurosur is a manifestation of the aforementioned trend in immigration controls towards “intelligence-led” risk analysis. The EU will use Eurosur to evaluate all movements of people in order to generate risk overviews from the data.

This text is part of the policy brief on Interner Link: "Frontex and the EU Border Regime".