Harmonisation by risk analysis? Frontex and the risk-based governance of European border control

Abstract

Scholars have highlighted the importance of Frontex risk analysis in the institutionalisation of EU-level border control without, however, sufficiently substantiating alleged harmonisation dynamics. This paper interrogates how and why EU-level actors seek to exploit risk analysis to harmonise European border control. An interpretive policy analysis of three contemporary applications of Frontex risk analysis – the Eurosur impact level assessment, the Schengen evaluation and monitoring mechanism and resource allocation in the Internal Security Fund – indicates that Frontex and the Commission found their harmonisation hopes on the rationalisation promises of risk-based governance – efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency gains and de-politicisation effects. This multi-functional rationalisation of Community decision-making is meant to justify increased EU-level coordination and interventions without challenging member state competencies, thereby enabling soft harmonisation processes in the weakly integrated and much contested domain. Rather than merely adhering to securitisation goals, risk analysis represents a magic bullet in the EU’s own institutional risk management.

Keywords:

• European integration
• risk analysis
• risk-based governance
• institutionalism
• border control
• Frontex

Acknowledgements

I thank interviewees for their generous sharing of insights as well as all collaborators on the HowSAFE project for the possibility to conduct this research ‘on the side’, and for their feedback. Thanks to Jacob Reilley for thorough language editing and to anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback.

Notes

1. The European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union. The article also uses ‘border agency’ or ‘agency’ as shorthand.

2. Helsinki was chosen as a headquarters not least because Finland had piloted the CIRAM within its own border control and had arguably uploaded its approach to the EU level (interviews with Frontex risk analyst on 3 February 2015 in Warsaw and with former Frontex adviser on 8 April 2015 via skype; also Horii 2016).

3. Under the impression of the refugee crisis the agency’s budget skyrocketed to 254 Mio €, with funds for risk analysis growing to 13.68 Mio € (Frontex webpage, accessed 17 May 2016).

4. Such ‘soft’ harmonisation processes have been identified for other security-related EU agencies such as Europol (e.g. Carrapiço and Trauner 2013).

5. The actuarial concept of risk needs to be distinguished from political and socio-cultural notions of risk which consider in more depth the contested character of risk ‘knowledge’ (Haines 2011).

6. While national uses of RBG are well-studied, especially in Anglo-American contexts (e.g. Black 2005; Haines 2011; Hutter 2005; Rothstein, Borraz, and Huber 2013, the role of risk-based rationalisations as part of European integration dynamics is not yet attracting much attention among RBG scholarship either.

7. A list of anonymized interviewees can be requested from the author. The sample covered all those involved in risk analysis at a strategic (rather than operational) level in the EU, and willing to speak to a researcher. Increasing public critique of Frontex during the ‘refuge crisis’ worsened access since spring 2015.

8. This article does not seek to test the empirical validity of these regulatory promises. What matters here is the perceived appeal of risk analysis by regulators themselves.