Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the way in which the European Union has gradually but steadily built a security architecture based on the control of mobility and borders. Different logics of policing are interwoven in several projects, which are strongly interdependent with technological innovation. Furthermore, the European policing of mobility is primarily performed by mounting surveillance – both inside and beyond European borders – by means of which all forms of movement (transactions, travelling, etc.) are subjected to intensive monitoring by multiple actors who are interlinked through strategies and systems. The main finding is that border policing is shifting in a fundamental way from fixed to fluid, from territorial to virtual, and from physical to technological. Hence, paradoxically, though mobility is strongly promoted as one of the main virtues of the European Union, Europe’s precautionary protection may be at ill-ease with the free movement of people. The article seeks to stimulate the knowledge and debate about deeper shifts in Europe’s security apparatus and develops this from a law enforcement perspective.