Jussi LAINE, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
The accentuation of the perceived difference between states, cultures, and people becomes a major security risk, which increases within contexts of socioeconomic stress and (geo)political instability). Both the ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015/2016 and the still ongoing Covid-19 pandemic have resulted in knee-jerk reaction by a number of European governments to reintroduce internal border controls limiting the mobility and flows of people between the EU Member States. The extent the border closures actually helped to alleviate the impact of the COVID-19 – apart from enhancing the psychological conformity borders tend to bring and reinforcing the perception that the threat is, as usual, foreign – remains unclear. To large extent, the border closures were a symbolic action to show that the national governments had the situation under control. Rather than seeking common solution to these inherently international challenges, strong nation state was offered as a solution for perceived chaos. These events have demonstrated that territorial strategies and the conception of a national space are still very much in effective use, not just in Europe but around the globe. The resultant regression into state-centric thinking has weakened the EU’s integrationist momentum, and solidarity, and put the very idea of open borders to a test. This paper discusses the broader societal implications of the recent rebordering discourse, by depicting that as a symptom of the broader insecurities many Europeans have felt. These insecurities have only been exacerbated amidst the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has also further reinforced the perception of borders as barriers to foreign threats.
Mots clés : border|crisis|security|European Union|COVID-19
A104738JL