The externalisation of EU borders is a central component of European migration policy – but what exactly does that mean? And what consequences do these political measures have for those seeking protection? In this article, we take a closer look – and hear a personal story, a voice from the border, that shows us what externalisation means in reality.
The externalisation of EU borders is a central element of European migration policy – and it is being expanded further and further. The term means that control over migration is increasingly being shifted to the outside, i.e. from the territory of the EU to other countries. The aim is to prevent people fleeing their countries from entering the legal jurisdiction of the EU in the first place.
People fleeing their homes are being kept further and further away from European territory – and thus also out of the reach of European courts and European asylum law. Human rights violations, such as illegal pushbacks, thus remain largely invisible to the public. The EU is outsourcing responsibility to states where the rule of law is often not guaranteed.
This video is part of the exhibition “Voices from the border” by borderline-europe (external link, opens in a new window). The exhibition is a collection of 15 short portraits of people detained at Europe's external borders and residents of these border regions.
Article by Lina Urbat and Alina Kopp. Online editing by Alina Kopp.
This article is published under the Creative Commons License: Attribution – 4.0 International CC BY 4.0 (external link, opens in a new window)! Feel free to share, use, or adapt this article for your educational work. Photo by Rasande Tyskar (external link, opens in a new window) under the license CC BY-NC 2.0 (external link, opens in a new window)via Flickr. Don't forget to publish it under the same conditions and mention L!NX and the authors!
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