Operation Poseidon in the Aegean Sea and the developments in the governance of EU's maritime borders

AutorIoannis Stribis
Cargo del AutorAssistant Professor, Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean
Páginas979-1009
979979
CHAPTER 41
Operation
Poseidon
in the Aegean
Sea and the developments in the
governance of EU’s maritime borders
Ioannis STRIBIS
Assistant Professor, Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean
Sumario: 1. Introduction. 2. The EU Agency for the management of external borders:
FRONTEX – European Border and Coast Guard. 3. The Joint Operation Poseidon. 3.1.
Tasks-Functioning. 3.2. External border: line of cooperation and/or point of friction. 4.
Joint FRONTEX operations and their impact on border management. 4.1. Common/
shared external border. 4.1.1. «Territories» of the European Union. 4.1.2. Delimitation
of the territories of the EU. 4.2. Borders in the context of FRONTEX Operations. 4.2.1.
Denition of borders. 4.2.2. From external borders of Member States towards EU ex-
ternal borders?
1. INTRODUCTION
Starting from the second half of 2015 and until April 2016, EU faced an
unprecedented, since the Second World War, inux of arrivals of nationals of
third countries, the magnitude of which was, rightly qualied a migratory crisis.
Hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, but also from other countries in
the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and North and Sub-Saharan Africa,
arrived on makeshift boats, most of them on the coasts of the Greek islands in
the Aegean sea, encouraged by the public (and widely publicized) statements of
German ocials, that their country would be ready to receive up to 800,000 ref-
980 LA CONSTRUCCIÓN JURÍDICA DE UN ESPACIO MARÍTIMO COMÚN EUROPEO
IOANNIS STRIBIS
ugees and asylum seekers (mainly from Syria).1 Such statements contributed in-
deed in fanning the already existing craving of large numbers of individuals and
families to ee war (or their aspiration to a better life) into the raging re of the
2015 autumn massive population ows towards the Greek coasts in the Aegean
Sea. Displacement through what has been called the ‘Eastern Mediterranean
Road’ was also favored because of the much stricter controls established in the
previous decade in the western and central Mediterranean and the introduction
by the Libyan authorities of entry visa requirement for Syrian citizens, render-
ing thus the travel to Libya much more dicult.
Statistics bear witness to this phenomenon: in 2015 almost one million
migrants (including those seeking international protection as refugees) arrived
in the territory of the EU Member States. 821 000 of them arrived in Greece,
the overwhelming majority (816 000 people) by sea. At the height of the phe-
nomenon, in October 2015, more than 200 000 people arrived in the Greek
islands in one month. To illustrate the extent of migration ows in 2015, it is
sucient to recall that the only precedent for massive migratory movements to-
wards the territory of an EU Member State was the arrival in the Canary Islands
in 2006 of 31 700 persons from West Africa.2
1 See Bundesministerium des Innern, für Bau und Heimat, «Zahl der Asylbewerber
erreicht neues Allzeithoch», 19. August 2015, https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/
kurzmeldungen/DE/2015/08/neue-asylprognose-vorgelegt.html ; BRD, Kanzleramt,
«800.000 Flüchtlinge Erwartet: Eine europäische Asylpolitik für alle», 23. August
2015, https://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/bkin-de/aktuelles/eine-europaeische-asylpoli-
tik-fuer-alle-444616 ; Besprechung der Bundeskanzlerin mit den Regierungschen-
nen und Regierungschefs der Länder am 18. Juni 2015, «Asyl- und Flüchtlingspoli-
tik»; Allan Hall, John Licheld, «Germany opens its gates: Berlin says all Syrian
asylum-seekers are welcome to remain, as Britain is urged to make a ‘similar state-
ment’, The Independent, 24 August 2015, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/
europe/germany-opens-its-gates-berlin-says-all-syrian-asylum-seekers-are-welcome-
to-remain-as-britain-is-10470062.html ; «De Maizière rechnet mit 800.000 Flüchtlin-
gen» Zeit Online, 19. August 2015, https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2015-08/
uechtlinge-zahl-de-maiziere-asyl .
2 Cf. Sergio Carrera, The EU Border Management Strategy FRONTEX and the Challenges
of Irregular Immigration in the Canary Islands, CEPS Working Document n. 261, March
2007.

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