Defending the fortress? Assessing the European Union’s response to trafficking

Article is part of a special issue entitled 'Managing the challenges of soft security threats in the 21st century'.

Abstract:

In the early 1990s, the European Union (EU) initiated two strategies, one deepening integration, the other widening it, to combat the increasingly important soft security agenda. This article seeks to assess the effectiveness of the EU's response to the new security environment and speculates as to whether the completion of one process makes the achievement of the other more difficult, if not impossible. One focus will be on the development of border management on the EU's periphery. Are the applicant states sufficiently prepared for the task of acting as the EU's external frontier guard? The reactions of existing member states is also put under the spotlight. Arguably, their failure to promote a more equitable burden sharing arrangement, coupled with the decision to maintain internal frontier controls with applicant states for a transitional period after accession, has made the task of securing a strong external frontier more difficult. The European Police Office (Europol) forms the centerpiece of analysis in relation to the deepening of integration. Its efficacy as a means of information exchange is examined, and the impact of enlargement is considered.

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