Frontex and the Rising of a New Border Control Culture in Europe

This book examines the rapidly expanding EU agency’s distinct role in EU border control, showing that Frontex is a prominent border control actor that reshapes the EU borders by promoting a new border control culture.

Bringing culture into the analysis of Frontex, this book offers an alternative in-depth understanding of the agency’s function, focusing on the production and diffusion of border control assumptions and practices within a border control community. Based on data drawn from primary research at Frontex and two EU external borders, namely Lampedusa and Evros, this book examines Frontex’s contribution to the emergence of a new border control culture in Europe, replacing the pre-existing Schengen culture. Compared with the existing literature on Frontex, this novel account takes into consideration the evolving nature of borders and border control, discussing three contemporary challenges for the established border control regime: Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and hard security preoccupations, such as the fall-out from the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the weaponisation of migration at the Greek-Turkish land border.

Frontex and the Rising of a New Border Control Culture in Europe will appeal to scholars and students of border management, EU studies, migration, geography, international relations, and security, along with policymakers and practitioners with an interest in EU border control and Frontex.

Antonia-Maria Sarantaki is postdoctoral researcher in the School of Economics and Political Sciences at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and academic fellow in the Department of International and European Economic Studies at Athens University of Economics and Business. She holds an MSc Econ in Security Studies from Aberystwyth University, UK and a PhD in European Politics from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Greece. Her PhD thesis focused on borders and the EU border control policy regime.