Reconfiguring EU external boundaries: competence and control

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Frank Schimmelfennig
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 532657320

The integration crises of the past decade have put the configuration and governance of the external borders of the European Union (EU) in the political and scientific focus. In this project, we examine the development of the external border regime of the EU from the vantage point of competence-control-theory. In any political system, the definition and control of external border are a central aspect of political development. In the multi-level-system of the EU, border governance is particularly complex, because the EU's external borders are state borders at the same time, the regulation of these borders is divided and contested between the EU and its members, and the external boundaries of the EU vary between policy areas (e.g., the internal market, the Schengen area, and the Eurozone).Trade-offs occur regularly between the requirements of an effective and efficient EU boundary governance (through common rules and resources), on the one hand, and the member states' quest for sovereign border control, on the other. In four work packages, the project pursues the question how and under which conditions this trade-off has shaped the integration of the EU's external borders.The first module is about theory building. Starting from competence-control-theory, it develops assumptions and hypotheses about the integration of the EU's external borders and the conditions under which the boundary configuration shifts in the direction of "competence" or "control". The second module describes and analyses the development of the external boundary governance regime. Its configuration has two main dimensions: the distribution of rule-making authority and resources. The project builds a dataset for the years 1987 (Single European Act) to 2025, which measures the annual distribution of authority and resources for every geographical and functional external boundary (e.g., for trade in goods with Switzerland or persons seeking international protection at the Italian border). Module 3 is a comparative case study analysis that explains the change in boundary configuration in four recent EU crises: the migration crisis, Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Russian war on Ukraine. Finally, Module 4 conducts a survey (with experimental elements) of citizen preferences on the EU external boundary regime in four member states. The project is part of the Research Unit on "Reconfiguring Europe". It complements the other project of the Unit through its focus on the external dimension of European integration.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5770: Reconfiguring Europe: Between competence and control
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Partner Organisation: Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF)
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Jana Lipps; Dr. Ronja Sczepanski