X-LAW · Controlling Escapes from Law. Re-designing accountability in the externalisation of migration control policies.
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-11-01 → 2024-02-05
- EU contribution
- €175,673
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Controlling Escapes from Law. Re-designing accountability in the externalisation of migration control policies.
The management of the external borders of the EU has become a vulnerable as well as contested policy: civil society organisations denounce the systemic violence occurring at the borders, involving both EU agencies and Member States’ authorities. Several European institutions and bodies scrutinise the activities of these agencies as well as their impact and effectiveness, and litigation against these agencies is gaining momentum. This fiercely contested policy area is especially illustrated by the debate sparked over the operational mandate of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). Over the past years, Frontex has come under scrutiny following media and civil society allegations of breaches of fundamental rights under international and European law, including pushbacks, disrespect of its legal mandate, and a track record of poor transparency and limited accountability. This storm of official investigations and reports, concluded by the report of the EU Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), led to the resignation of the Frontex Executive Director, Fabrice Leggeri, in April 2022. Though undisclosed for months, the (eventually leaked) report eventually confirmed serious issues of mismanagement and of violations of the Frontex founding Regulation and operational rules, by its former Executive Director, casting doubts on the quality of the internal oversight on the Agency. These emerging forms of transparency and accountability, which are the fruit of concerted efforts of civil society, investigative journalism and engaged academia, do raise important questions about the compliance and respect of the legal framework by agencies, in particular concerning the protection of fundamental rights at the external borders of the EU. Consequently, additional issues emerge as to possible accountability challenges and gaps. Other EU agencies, active in the Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (AFSJ), such as the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement (Europol), the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA), and the European Union Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems (EU-LISA), face similar gaps in accountability. The increasing inter-agency cooperation, namely the cooperation among EU migration agencies at the external borders of the EU, in the known hotspots, expands the significance of those gaps. Moreover, a plurality of actors appears on the stage of the external borders of the EU, including private companies and third-country administrations. Together with the increased digitalisation of external border controls (e.g., with the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), and its reliance on Artificial Intelligence technologies, the efforts to scrutinise the discretion exercised by those actors and their compliance with their legal obligations further complicate the legal landscape and the search for clear fundamental rights guarantees. This project is important for society since it contributes to highlighting the shortcomings of the functioning of the most contested European Agency, Frontex, and to put forward solutions that can be employed to improve its record of compliance to the legal framework governing its operations, and also to improve the accountability gaps highlighted in its functioning.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The lack of successful reforms of the internal dimension of migration policies, as witnessed by the stalemate of the recast of the ‘Dublin Regulation’ and by the disappointing fate of ‘relocation schemes’ for migrants across Member States, creates a fertile ground for proliferation of policies of externalisation of migration controls. These aim at creating transnational governance structures geared at sharing the administration of the preventive containment of migration flows directed to Europe. In the words of a layman, Europe pays to keep migrants away from its territories (see EUObserver article ‘Will the EU continue paying to keep migrants away?’, 9/9/2019).The informalisation of readmission and cooperation agreements with third states, the increased relevance of executive governance actors in border controls, the cooperation with Third Country governments in operational settings (information-sharing for risk analysis, return operations) are trends growing exponentially. These recent externalisation practices suggest the creation of governance avenues characterised by a transfer of functions and responsibilities to third-country organs and/or delocalisation of control practices to third-country territories. In this way law, European law specifically, is being set aside (X-LAW).In a first phase, the described tendencies will be mapped and their specific features will be conceptualised. In the second part, the project will analyse the legal consequences of externalisation practices previously mapped. In the third part, the project will focus on accountability mechanisms for the transnational governance systems created. X-LAW is relevant for the Work Program 13: ‘Europe in a changing world’ of the H2020 Work Programme 2018-2020, in particular for the calls Migration 02-2018 and Migration 07-2019.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE · FiesoleCoordinatorItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union