CSOs and EU Border Management: Cooperation or Resistance? The Case of Frontex Consultative Forum

Abstract

The so-called European migrant or refugee crisis, started in 2015, has marked the climax of an increasing European tension on the management of the external borders, tension that had been building up since the turn of the century. In this particularly turbulent period, civil society organizations (CSOs) lobbying for human and migrant rights have expanded their presence not only operatively at the land and sea borders of the European Union (EU) but also at the EU governance level. With the growing importance of agencies in the EU executive space in terms of competences and resources (i.e., agencification), advocacy groups have started to direct their advocacy efforts toward EU agencies, particularly in the Area of Freedom Security and Justice. The most controversial EU agency in this scenario is the 13-year-old agency Frontex, now called European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which is also where the presence of CSOs has become more substantial in terms of competences and ability to access information on the operational and strategic activity of the agency. The aim of this article is to establish how this relationship between Frontex and CSOs has developed over time and what has been the impact of this relationship on the agency on fundamental rights matters. This study addresses these two issues by, first, analyzing the CSOs represented within Frontex Consultative Forum (CF) on fundamental rights, their aims and lobbying strategies vis-à-vis Frontex; second, the evolution of their relationship with the agency and the rationale of their permanence within the CF; and, last, their impact on Frontex’s understanding of fundamental rights. Considerations on advocacy activity outside of the CF are also presented by stressing the difference in ideology between organizations that decided to advocate for fundamental rights from within or outside Frontex.