What Kind of Border Regime is in the Making?

The recent round of enlargement has provided new impetus for the study of European Union (EU) external borders. This article conceptualizes the emerging European border regime as a composite policy, arguing that the regime is shaped by policy-making across such diverse areas as Regional Policy, Justice and Home Affairs, Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement. It shows that different policy paradigms attribute diverging functions to the EU external border and prescribe different modes of governance and diverse patterns of openness and control. The policy process producing the border regime is therefore both vertically and horizontally fragmented, reflecting interests, perceptions, norms, structures and procedures at various levels of authority (supranational, national, local) and in different policy sectors. This fragmentation results in a differentiated and uneven border strategy marked by diverse patterns of inclusion and exclusion, as illustrated by three case studies representing variations from the common European standard.