The Treaty of Lisbon and the European Border Control Regime

Abstract:
The question raised in the article is how the new provisions of the Lisbon Treaty and the Stockholm programme concerning the EU’s asylum and migration policy might consolidate existing trends within the European border control regime.

The regime is defined by a combination of three features:

(i) a harmonisation of categories among the EU/Schengen member states
ii) a growing use of new technology in networked databases
iii) an increasing sorting of individuals based on security concerns.

Although none of these features is new, the combination gives a new impetus to the European border control regime.

The article concludes that the Lisbon Treaty and the Stockholm programme consolidate and strengthen existing trends. This implies that policies on border control, asylum, immigration, judicial cooperation and police cooperation are consolidated in a broader approach to border control, and that there is a strengthening of EU foreign policy within the European border control regime. The boundaries between previously dispersed policy areas are blurred. The combination of different aspects of security and various levels of authority requires coordination of policies with substantially different goals, and goes beyond mere border control.