European Integration through the prism of Migration and Internal Security: Is the Creation of Frontex Standing Corps a step forward to European Integration?

Abstract

This dissertation examines whether the creation of the Frontex Standing Corps constitutes a step forward in European integration within the field of migration and border governance. By situating the Standing Corps within the broader evolution of EU internal security policy, the study explores how operational capacity, institutional design, and political constraints interact in a domain traditionally guarded as a core state sovereign function. The analysis employs a qualitative case study approach, guided by an integrated theoretical framework of neofunctionalism, liberal intergovernmentalism, multi-level governance, and Europeanisation. It assesses whether the Corps reflects deeper supranational integration or a politically constrained form of cooperation. Empirically, it analyses EU legal acts, policy documents, and agency publications. Uniquely, it incorporates a reflexive practitioner perspective, which provides critical, ground-level insight into the micro-dynamics of integration—such as operational trust-building, the perception of EU officers as potential oversight agents, and the conditional, experience-based engagement of member states like Poland and France. The findings confirm that the Standing Corps represents a qualitative shift by establishing a permanent EU-level operational capacity. It strengthens coordination and fosters professional convergence. However, its design and deployment exemplify a form of conditional and negotiated integration: member states enhance collective capacity while meticulously preserving sovereignty, notably through intergovernmental control via Frontex's Management Board and the principle of host-state responsibility. The practitioner lens reveals that integration at the operational level advances through daily practice, experiential learning, and the gradual normalisation of a visible EU presence, even in politically sensitive contexts. The dissertation concludes that the creation of the Frontex Standing Corps does constitute a step forward in European integration, but of a specific, sectoral kind. It embodies a hybrid model of governance that balances functional necessity against political and sovereignty constraints. Its main significance lies in demonstrating how integration in internal security progresses not through grand constitutional transfers, but through pragmatic, practice-driven, and continuously negotiated processes that characterise the EU's unique political system.