The Securitization of Frontex

The foundation of the Single Market in 1986 lead to a spill-over from economic policy to security policy, a process of securitization. The European border management agency, Frontex, which has a coordinating task in the joint border management of the EU member states, is an example of this securitization process. Both the European Commission and the Council mainly used a solidarity discourse until 2003. From 2004 onwards, after the foundation of Frontex until today, this changed into the use of a security discourse. Furthermore, Frontex' day-to-day activities portray the prevailing of security over other issues, such as solidarity between member states, and concerns about human rights and international law. This research is based on a discourse analysis using four discourses: constitutional rights, security, economy, and solidarity. It explains the emergence of these discourses, and ultimately the dominance of security discourse as a result of the discourse shift from solidarity to security discourse.