Security and Internal Frontiers: The Temptation of Europe and National Reflexes

Through studying transfrontier co-operation between local police forces and their attempts to render their legal instruments mutually compatible, this article sets out to grasp how the European Union’s internal frontier zones have become spaces for multi-institutional exchange and comparable bilateral practices. Significantly, the existence of European institutions has not brought about homogenisation or normalization. Instead, the principle of competition between these zones and between the instruments of their respective police forces has in fact caused an autonomization of these areas from traditional forms of inter-police co-operation. This process has transformed and dynamized the administration of internal security in Europe.