In this presentation, we approach the border as a 'scene' (Aradau & Blanke, 2022) where different controversies unfold during moments of crisis, such as the 'migration crisis', the COVID crisis, the environmental crisis.
More specifically, we look at three EU internal borders, between Italy and France (Ventimiglia); between Italy and Austra (Brenner); and between Italy and Slovenia (Trieste).
Controversies arising at the EU internal borders along crisis relate, for example, to the introduction of border checks and the technologies mediating those checks. Likewise, they can be represented by political and media discussions around the opportunity to build a wall or a fence. Finally, they can involve forms of protests, confrontations, and conflict.
The objective of this presentation is to unpack the actors (human or otherwise) involved in the scene and their interactions, and to understand what the effects of these controversies are for those three border areas and for the EU more in general.
Approaching the border as a "scene" represents a conceptual and methodological innovation in the study of borders, and can help us shed new light on the complex assemblage of actors, infrastructures, and practices composing border management in the Schengen space.

The presentation is part of a broader project financed by the European Union – Next Generation EU, within the PRIN 2022 Scheme. Progect: "The Border is no More, Long Live the Border. De-materialization and re-materialization of internal borders in the European Union”

The EU’s cross-border regions promote intensive social and economic relations that are crucial for regional development as well as the livelihoods of millions of people. At the EU level, cross-border mobility of people and services has been facilitated through the free movement of EU citizens and workers and the harmonization of various aspects of the member states' national regulations in labour law, social security and social security.

The COVID-19 pandemic, once again, illustrated that these measures are inadequate to guarantee the effective functioning of cross-border regions in the Union in crisis situations. Free movement in cross-border regions is not subject to special protection by EU law. As a result, national crisis management ('covidfencing') measures such as border controls and entry bans have repeatedly failed to sufficiently consider the special circumstances of cross-border regions and erected new barriers for border commuters and their families, tourists and others. In order to increase the resilience of cross-border regions in future crises, it is essential that their specific function and relevance is taken into account in decision-making at the national level, and that future crisis measures are properly coordinated with the affected neighbouring countries. In this paper, we seek to provide a solid conceptual foundation for understanding the function of cross-border regions in the EU integration process by unravelling the legal, political, economic and social significance of cross-border regions in the EU to serve as a basis for an argument to enhance the legal status of cross-border regions in the EU legal order.

The abolition of internal borders within the Schengen area is among the most acclaimed landmarks of European integration. Free movement between EU Member States is a core right of EU Citizenship and EU migration law has equally awarded third-country nationals certain intra-EU mobility rights. However, “borderless Europe” does not result in the same reality for everyone. Racial profiling, i.e. being stopped by the police and other law enforcement authorities for checks of identity and residence documents solely or mainly based on racialized elements such as skin colour, ethnicity or religion, is a commonplace experience for black and ethnic minority EU citizens and third-country nationals. Such checks often happen in the name of controlling irregular migration, especially in the proximity of or at EU internal borders. Apart from amounting to prohibited race discrimination, racially profiled checks erect alternative “borders” that impede free movement irrespective of the presence of an actual physical border. This results in a “racialized” EU mobility regime in which only a privileged group of EU citizens and third-country nationals enjoys full free movement rights in practice.

Racial profiling within Member States is usually not considered a matter of EU law, as it would exclusively relate to the competences of domestic law enforcement authorities. This paper dismisses this assumption by showing that EU Schengen and asylum instruments not only condone but intensify national practices of racial profiling. Reintroduced controls of Member States at internal borders, policing in the proximity of these borders as proposed in the revision of the Schengen Borders Code and the “screening” of irregular migrants within the territory of Member States allowed by the new Screening Regulation are likely to give rise to widespread racial profiling at internal borders and within Member States’ territory. As these instruments, and EU law more broadly, lack indications on how to deal with cases of racial profiling, it is high time to establish a common EU framework that allows scrutinizing whether law enforcement practices amount to prohibited race discrimination and constitute illegitimate impediments to free movement. This would be in line with the EU’s commitments to fighting racism and upholding its borderless ideal. Drawing on existing EU legislation and CJEU jurisprudence, this paper demonstrates that assessing racial profiling at EU level is already possible and that a basis exists to further develop a framework that properly addresses and examines racial profiling arising from EU instruments.

This presentation will address the transnational roots, debates and conditions for the diachronic implementation of a game-changing policy: The EU’s Free Movement of Persons. Its main objective is to highlight the revealing value of critical historical analysis in this field and the normative legacies on human mobility rights in the European integration process to address current challenges in migration and asylum policy-making.

The main consulted archives comprise the Historical Archives of the EU (HAEU) in Florence, the Historical Archives of the European Parliament (HAEP) in Luxembourg and the ‘Barbara Sloan EU Delegation to the US Collection’ (BSEUDC) at the University of Pittsburgh.

This lecture focuses on the case of European Parliament because of its constant and groundbreaking critiques to the building modalities of the Schengen Area, which it accused of lacking democratic legitimacy, of sidelining the independent power of the judiciary and of downplaying the supranational dimension of human mobility rights in Europe. In turn, the EP drafted numerous human-rights centered proposals which deeply reconnect with the societal discussions of our present.

You are invited to discover the rich diversity of this documentary corpus that can help us ‘look back’ in order to ‘see beyond’ on this very timely issue: the belonging and displacement of transnational mobile populations, whose migration patterns built up principles, norms, political cultures and entire civilizations on their wake.

The main questions to be addressed are: What are the evolving modes of exclusion in transnational mobility in Europe and beyond? How can historical critiques be relevant to today’s challenges to free movement of persons? What are the neglected differential solidarity and diversity dimensions of European integration? In this light, can we articulate responses to humanitarian dilemmas beyond security-centred conceptions of transnational mobility? And normatively, are narratives on ‘shared values’ in the EU and beyond, sufficient to mediate countervailing factors of exclusion?

This enquiry on EP sources is based on archival research at the Historical Archives of the EU in Florence, at the Historical Archives of the EP in Luxembourg and at the EP Research Services. These sources also include a large set of Oral History interviews conducted with key decision-makers at the European institutions on ways of influencing the dynamics resulting from introducing a ‘solidarity’ and a fundamental rights element within the EU’s ‘free movement of persons’ policy-making.