The Frontiers of the European Union

244 Pages·2001·2.38 MB·English

by  Malcolm Anderson

The Frontiers of the
European Union
Malcolm Anderson
with
Eberhard Bort
The Frontiers of the European Union
Also by Malcolm Anderson
FRONTIERS: Territory and State Formation in the Contemporary World
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE (co-editor with Eberhard Bort)
THE IRISH BORDER: History, Politics and Culture (with Eberhard Bort)
POLICING THE EUROPEAN UNION (co-author)
Also by Eberhard Bort
BOUNDARIES AND IDENTITIES: The Eastern Frontier of the European Union
THE FRONTIERS OF EUROPE (co-editor with Malcolm Anderson)
THE IRISH BORDER: History, Politics and Culture (with Malcolm Anderson)
The Frontiers of the
European Union
Malcolm Anderson
Professor Emeritus
University of Edinburgh
with
Eberhard Bort
Coordinator of Governance of Scotland Forum
Edinburgh
© Malcolm Anderson and Eberhard Bort 2001
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Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2001 by
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Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAVEis the new global academic imprint of
St.Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and
Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd).
ISBN 0–333–80435–X
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and
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A catalogue record for this book is available
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anderson,Malcolm.
The frontiers of the European Union / Malcolm Anderson
and Eberhard Bort.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–333–80435–X
1.European Union countries—Boundaries.2.European Union
countries—Foreign economic relations—Europe,Eastern.
3.Europe—Foreign relations.4.Social integration—European
Union countries.5.International cooperation.6.Europe,Eastern–
–Foreign economic relations—European Union countries.I.Bort,
Eberhard,1954– II.Title.
D1065.E852 A44 2000
341.242'2—dc21
00–066884
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd,Chippenham,Wiltshire
Contents
List of Maps vii
Acknowledgements viii
1 Introduction 1
2 Theory 13
Geographical theories 13
State sovereignty and national sovereignty 16
Frontiers of security communities 22
Frontiers as factors in economic activity 25
Cultural frontiers 28
The globalisation debate and images of frontiers 35
Theory and practice 42
3 Internal Frontier Issues 45
‘Natural’ frontiers? 45
Sparse and dense exchanges 47
Linguistic and cultural divides 49
Frontier controls 56
Transfrontier co-operation between local and regional
authorities 62
Conclusion 73
4 The Case of French Frontiers 75
Perceptions of territory 75
Sensitive frontiers – from military to economic
vulnerability 77
The French–Italian frontier 87
The Pyrenees frontier 91
Policing the frontiers 99
The cultural frontier 106
Conclusion – the local, the European and the global 110
5 The External Frontier of the European Union 113
External frontiers and the European state 113
Categories of external frontiers 115
Scandinavian external frontiers 122
The Swiss frontiers 126
v
vi Contents
The Mediterranean frontier 128
Conclusion 141
6 The Case of the Eastern Frontier of the European
Union 143
Enlargement: setting the scene 143
Strategies 159
Conclusion 172
7 Conclusion 174
Notes 184
Bibliography 200
Index 224
List of Maps
1.1 New frontiers in Central and Eastern Europe after
1989 2
3.1 Priority areas for INTERREG programmes 69
4.1 France: the north–eastern frontier 78
4.2 France: the eastern frontier 88
4.3 France: the Pyrenean frontier 92
6.1 EU enlargement 145
6.2 Euroregions on the eastern frontier of the EU 168
vii
Acknowledgements
Essential financial support for the research on which this book is based
was generously provided by an Economic and Social Research Council
grant (ESRC No. R000 23 5602) and by a Nuffield Trust Fellowship
which gave relief from teaching duties.
Edinburgh colleagues Anthony Cohen, Neil MacCormick, Tom
Nairn, Peter Cullen (Trier), Jim Sheptycki (Durham) and Willie
Paterson (Birmingham) helped in a variety of ways. A network of col-
leagues throughout Europe provided insights, information and ma-
terial help. We particularly thank Didier Bigo (Paris) and Raimondo
Strassoldo (Udine).
Conferences and meetings were facilitated with the help of Europa-
Zentrum Baden-Württemberg (Sabine Leins), Europahaus Wien (Erich
Wendl) and Accademia Europeistica Gorizia (Pio Baissero).
We are grateful to Anona Lyons (Department of Geography,
University of Edinburgh) for drawing the maps in this book.
viii
1
Introduction
Since the beginning of the turbulent twentieth century the changes,
both in location and function, of European frontiers have been dra-
matic. The old multinational empires in Europe were showing signs of
serious strain before 1914, and were already disintegrating in the
Balkans. Even the multinational British state was on the verge of break-
ing up, threatened by Irish secession, because of the failure to establish
a ‘British Isles identity’. In the immediate aftermath of the First World
War, radically new frontiers were drawn, influenced by the interests of
the victors and by the principle of the self-determination of nations, in
Central and Eastern Europe. The Second World War again resulted in
boundary redrawing in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the parti-
tion of Germany. Transfer of populations on a massive scale accompa-
nied this reallocation of territory, producing a greater coincidence of
national and state frontiers. Territorial questions were then frozen for a
40-year period, during which time an ‘Iron Curtain’ separated two
incompatible political and economic systems.
The frontiers of Europe returned, in the 1990s, to the centre of politi-
cal debate, as the European Union (EU) member states took further
steps towards closer co-operation and as radical transformation fol-
lowed the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe.
Within the EU, integration gained momentum through the 1986
Single European Act, creating the Single European Market (SEM) by
1 January 1993; at the same time, a ‘border-free’ Europe was envisaged
in the 1985 Schengen Agreement and the 1990 Schengen Convention.
Economic and political integration presaged a blurring of the distinc-
tion between international and sub-state boundaries within the EU,
and particularly within ‘Schengenland’. This raised the possibility that,
as international frontiers lost the visible trappings of police, border
1