Expansive EU defence, migration and security policy shifts are altering the EU’s nature

, by MACCANICO Yasha

EU funding drives the militarisation of security and migration policies

An apparently unstoppable march in the militarisation of security and migration policies and their implementation led Statewatch and the Transnational Institute (TNI) to focus on EU security budgets for two successive periods, 2014-2020 and 2021-2027. [1] When Ursula von der Leyen and Josep Borrell confirmed that the European Peace Facility (ERP) would be used to support Ukraine, including through provision of lethal weapons following its invasion by Russia in February 2022, a path towards the militarisation of EU foreign policy had already been set. Several EU budgetary instruments are part of the 2021–27 Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF), which earmarked an unprecedented amount of funding for security and defence purposes. Instruments with budget lines for security, defence and military equipment include the Internal Security Fund (ISF), the Integrated Border Management Fund (IBMF), the Asylum and Migration Fund (AMF), the Security Research Programme and the European Defence Fund (EDF), among others.

Funding increases across the board raise eyebrows

The funding made available for security and defence spending more than doubles that from the previous seven-year cycle, from €19.7b to €43.9b, with almost €8b earmarked for the EDF, in a 1,256% increase compared with the EDF’s precursor programmes, the Preparatory Action on Defence Research and the European Defence Industrial Development Programme. For the first time, this funding will be used for research into and development of high-tech military weaponry. The ERP budget was more than doubled (up to €5.7b) and its potential outputs include military weapon research and development, as well as off-budget military initiatives, with a lack of democratic oversight and transparency. The ISF increased by 90% to €1.9b, allocation to IBMF “Border and Visa” more than doubled to €6.2b, as did funding earmarked for EU agencies Frontex and Europol, up to €9.6b, while AMF funding rose by 43% (€9.9b).

The Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme’s budget more than doubled to €1.4b, yet the imbalance between funding for such concerns and law enforcement, border control, military research, development and operations is noteworthy, amidst concern for the redirection of development aid funds towards law enforcement, migration control and security. In fact, 10% of the funds allocated to NDICI (Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument) are to be used to enhance the ability of so-called “third states” to control migration movements. This follows on from previous initiatives to use the EU’s Development Fund and the EU Trust Fund for Africa to pursue strategic migration policy goals.

The goals of efforts to ensure “effectiveness” of border control and migration management include:

  • developing “the external dimension of asylum and migration management” (AMF);
  • “to facilitate legitimate border crossings, to prevent and detect illegal immigration and cross-border crime and to effectively manage migratory flows” (IBMF);
  • enhance “inter-agency cooperation” between member states, Union bodies and third countries; and
  • deploying immigration liaison officers (ILOs) to non-EU countries to gather information and intelligence on migratory movements (IBMF), with Frontex equipped with a pool of ILOs.

Conceptual shifts at the service of security and militarism

Beyond the growing sums of money involved, the 2020-2027 budget was indicative of two key changes affecting the foundations of the European Union. Developments embodied in the shifting frameworks for the European Peace Facility and the European Defence Fund alter the original nature of the EU as a project striving for the promotion of peace. These two funds allow provision of lethal weaponry in war settings (Ukraine being the first such example), related R&D activities and funding for military projects, which were previously forbidden. These interventions also bolster the EU’s security-industrial complex through lucrative homeland security contracts, buying into the complex’s vision for the continuous development and deployment of technical solutions, premised on enhanced surveillance techniques. Companies belonging to this milieu have receive the lion’s share of homeland security research contracts in the past, a trend that is expected to continue in the 2021-2027 period.

The main beneficiaries of the 2007-2013 EU security research programme included transnational corporations in the defence sector like Airbus, Selex and Thales, alongside large research institutes like the Fraunhofer Institute (Germany), TNO (Netherlands) and the Swedish Defence Research Institute. The subsequent funding period (2014-2020) saw a comparable distribution of funds among private companies (41%, equivalent to just over €663m), research institutes (25%), higher education (21%), public bodies (10%) and other organisation types (3%). In this way, different economic and professional sectors are roped into, and become reliant on, security projects and funding streams, which is one reason why civil society efforts to highlight harmful developments are often dismissed and fail to alter the direction of travel.

Beyond the outward-projecting military and defence components of these efforts, what is happening within the EU in terms of militarising civilian life in peacetime (Joxe, 2010) and subordinating rights and normative limits to security concerns (including irregularised migration) and the so-called “reason of state” (raison d’etat) is troubling. The EU’s longstanding and foundational refusal to fund border walls is under attack from governments represented in the Council (including the current Hungarian presidency), which remains dominant in the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) policy field. A rebalancing that was expected to follow the Lisbon Treaty coming into force, was successfully averted using arguments of “sovereignty” and the primacy of strategic security and law enforcement objectives. This hierarchy of priorities also had structural effects, including creation of the standing committee on internal security (COSI) and the expansive development of EU agencies, law enforcement powers, structures and multi-year policy cycles.

Strengthening and empowering EU agencies

The risk analysis reports periodically published by EU agencies like Frontex and Europol (which also produces an EU terrorism situation and trends report, TESAT) serve as a backbone for the expansive development of security efforts, these agencies’ growth and the setting of mid-term plans and priority fields of intervention. Other EU agencies include the EU Asylum Agency (EUAA) and euLISA, “the European Union Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice​”, which is tasked with managing the “interoperability” project [2] that seeks to ensure compatibility and interconnection between migration and law enforcement databases. Thus, in the case of databases, a proliferation of data management structures (databases like Eurodac, the Schengen Information System -SIS- or the Visa Information System -VIS-) has given rise to an agency to manage them, alongside planned new databases like the Entry Exit System (EES), ETIAS (European Travel Information Authorisation System) and ECRIS-TCN (European Criminal Records Information System-Third-Country Nationals).

Working visit to FRONTEX Malta. Federal Minister Sebastian Kurz inspects a simulation of a border surveillance operation on a FRONTEX ship. 24.03.2017

The EU Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, is set to receive unprecedented funding, €5.6b from 2021 to 2027, representing a 194% increase compared to the previous budgetary cycle, alongside its key role in overseeing the use of EU migration funds by member states. Over twenty years of existence, Frontex has gone from receiving €6m in 2005, to receiving €800m on average per year – a 13,200% budget increase. Several hundred million euros a year are supposed to enable Frontex to fulfil its expanded role, particularly development of its ‘standing corps’ of 10,000 border guards. The European Commission is obliged to take into account Frontex’s views on national spending under the AMF and IBMF funding streams, and Frontex must be consulted on how member states address recommendations resulting from systematic border management evaluations. Equipment purchased by national border authorities using the IBMF must comply with Frontex’s technical standards, and be available for the agency to use. Furthermore, Frontex is also set to play a role in identifying and evaluating relevant research activities, as part of the Civil Security for Society homeland security research programme.

Elements that appear to be lacking in these developments include transparency, oversight and accountability. Regarding the Internal Security Fund (ISF), the European Parliament may provide recommendations based on Commission reports on spending and outcomes, which the Commission “shall endeavour to take into account”, although this requirement does not apply to the AMF and the IBMF. Despite an obligation for national authorities to publish information on the ISF, AMF and IBMF, there are loopholes to limit transparency by relying on exceptions available in EU and national law “for reasons of security, public order, criminal investigations, or protection of personal data”. Such exceptions could be interpreted broadly by overzealous officials, whilst transparency for the European Defence Fund and the European Peace Facility have been kept to a minimum. A further issue that heightens opacity is the distribution of funds for the external dimension of migration across several funding streams (development, migration, security), which makes MEPs’ oversight and scrutiny roles difficult to exercise in practice.

On top of the above, it must be noted that the data collection and processing activities of Frontex [3] and Europol [4] have been empowered through a drive to develop AI solutions at the service of procedures to impede either “irregular” migration and/or “misuse” of the EU asylum system. Developments in the context of the new Screening Regulation and reform of the asylum system make it likely that pre-emptively using biographic details to establish whether someone may represent a “threat” to either security and/or public order may become standard practice. Moves to improve cooperation with law enforcement authorities in third countries mean that the data available to EU agencies may become less reliable, as does the incorporation of “intelligence” into these efforts. At the same time, wide interpretations of what constitutes a “safe country of origin” that sometimes fail to consider the situation on the ground are being deployed by member states in order to “restore the credibility of the EU returns system” by increasing returns. [5] In fact, a glance at the Frontex organisational structure chart [6] shows that the agency has been equipped with a EIBM Intelligence Division, and a Returns Division as part of its Operations unit, as part of its multi-faceted expansion and growth.

Resisting the militarisation of EU borders and assistance to third states’ coercive capabilities

Three angles from which civil society organisations and activists in the EU have denounced these developments, is by pointing to the militarisation of borders, [7] to support that migration management is providing to repression by authoritarian regimes and to the opacity of externalisation deals [8] that undermine some of key EU foundational goals. Such goals include the promotion of human rights worldwide, an idea that contrasts starkly with the wave of violence and rights abuses that is affecting border regions and with two recent deals on cooperation, the memoranda of understanding struck with Tunisia and Egypt. The EU’s gamble on using hi-tech solutions to improve social media monitoring and social control capabilities, supposedly to fight “irregular” migration, but liable to be deployed against society at large, gives rise to concern. [9] Despite challenges to these initiatives on transparency and human rights grounds, for instance in France [10] and Italy [11] concerning cooperation with Tunisia and Libya (sometimes upheld by the judiciary), these have failed to alter the course of migration policy externalisation, which is at the core of initiatives under the Pact. At Statewatch, a project to monitor Council working groups and the outsourcing of EU attempts to control migration and mobility whilst multiplying so-called “returns”, seeks to obtain and make available documentation to enable scrutiny and accountability, whilst informing public debate, by making such working groups’ documents available. [12] A presentation by the Commission that became public following an access to information request by German-based organisation Frag den Staat, reveals that from 2007, €3.5b have been spent on R&D of technological systems for border surveillance and migration management (with 800 such projects funded through Internal Security and Border Management funds). [13]

In Barcelona, a man shows a protest sign in front of a banner stating "No to war on migrants".

Beyond concerns linked to migration policy and the JHA policy field, militarisation and a tight bond that has been asserted between migration policy implementation and security, alongside industrial and commercial interests, are further obstacles to achieving a paradigm shift or change of outlook. The frameworks applicable to activity undertaken as part of EU missions with military components (Common Security and Defence Policy, CSDP, like those in Libya, EUBAM and Niger, EUCAP Sahel) and diplomatic efforts (EEAS) are, understandably, subject to less transparency due to the their operative dimension tied to security concerns, and to a need to protect international relations. At the same time, however, the scale and monetary worth of externalised activity raises the issue of whether EU citizens should have better access to information on these developments, and of whether this right of access should also include citizens of so-called “third states” where such activities take place.

Conclusion: barriers, surveillance, security and pseudo-science

Beyond concern over legality, ballooning budgets and transparency, the real battle concerns EU values and principles, alongside misuse of the European Union framework by member states willing to benefit from common EU funds at the same time as they are hostile to the EU project as a whole, in the name of “sovereignty”. Despite the withering away of limits to the use of EU funds to erect border barriers, great strides have been taken towards using such funds to develop “techno-borders”. Digital technologies developed and used for this purpose “underpin invasions of privacy, brutal violations of human rights, and make the border ‘mobile’, for example through the increased use of mobile biometric identification technologies, such as handheld fingerprint scanners used by police and border authorities”. [14] This will be accompanied by an increase in the data demanded from travellers within the framework of the deployment of EES and ETIAS. In turn, the information will be used to train algorithms to assess the risk or threat levels of applicants to enter the EU, potentially leading to refusals of entry. The expansive development of surveillance architecture around borders and beyond, for example to establish “pre-frontier situational awareness”, has served as a counterweight to not directly funding barriers or walls, via deployment of drones, cameras, satellite imagery and networks of sensors, as well as promoting social media monitoring.

In this context, it is worth noting that member states are making ample use of EU funding. Greece, a key “frontline” state at EU external borders, received almost €977m from 2014 to 2020 from EU home affairs funds in the areas of policing, borders, asylum and integration. This has risen to €1.5b for the 2021-2027 period, with spending specifically for borders growing from €303m to over €1b despite frequent reports of human rights violations in the country’s border enforcement practices. Other countries’ border budgets from such funds are also increasing: in France, €207m, almost 200% more than in the 2014-2020 period; Croatia is to receive almost 100% more, €155m; and Spain’s border funds increase by 34%, to €325m.

The constant treatment of migration policy implementation as equivalent to providing security advances, incorporating concerns over trafficking and smuggling (as organised crime), terrorism and, more recently, hybrid attacks by third state governments, has produced legislative offshoots like the Crisis and Force Majeure regulation. Alongside the Eurodac Regulation, the Screening Regulation, changes to the Schengen Borders Code, and the Artificial Intelligence Act, an opportunity to treat irregular border crossings as justification to suspend the normal functioning of the rule of law, may be flanked by pseudo-scientific endeavours using algorithms to enhance state power over people, in the guise of migration control.

References
Joxe, A. (2010) The Barbarization of Peace: the Neo-Conservative Transformation of War and Perspectives, in Dal Lago, A. and Palidda, S, (2010) Conflict, Security and the Reshaping of Society. The Civilization of War, Routledge: Abingdon and New York.