AGENCIFICATION OF THE EU’S EXTERNAL BORDERS: FRONTEX OR THE EUROPEAN CREDIBILITY FACING MIGRATION ISSUE

Frontex has been created in 2004 after several years of negotiations. Located in Warsaw, Poland, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union entered into force in 2005. Frontex does not replace but complements and provides particular added value to the national border management system of each Member States. Since this time the agency highly increased its budget, its staff and its equipment. In charge to deal with the sensitive issue of migration and to carry out specific tasks, the agency is seen as the “protector” of the Schengen borders, an area of around 500 million inhabitants without any internal borders and where the perception of the Stranger is often made by fear and unknown. However, the European Union has always been a land of refuge and we can understand the agency and its missions raise several problems from a humanistic point of view. As stressed below, Frontex is an agency and it is particularly interesting to focus on the conception of this agency through several scientific theories, especially the theories of agencification. It is also relevant to focus on its structure and some activities in order to understand how Frontex really works. Eventually, it is necessary to conceptualize the agency within the global European migration policy, its dynamics, its ambiguities and its challenges. Frontex is not fully legitimated but it is a striking expression of what the migration policy is seen in Europe.

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