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This article presents one of the most salient aspects of the migration crisis in the EU, namely the turbulent management of external borders, and analyzing it in the case of the central region of the Mediterranean Sea. The study is focused on risks and threats to the security of the European Union and its member states, particularly Italy, posed by negative aspects of migratory flows and accompanying phenomena such as migrant smuggling, trafficking in human beings, drug smuggling or document frauds. For this purpose, a concept of ‘extended borderland’ is applied as particularly suitable for analyzing border-security policies and actions undertaken by the European Union. The argument developed in this article is that the Central Mediterranean area has been converted into an extended borderland where conventional systems, methods and tools of border management are superseded by spatial taming created by international actors acting through joint maritime operations.

Migration movements to Europe, triggered by dramatic political and social developments in North Africa and the Middle East, have contributed to a decrease in the level of security in the European Union and to the crisis of this organization. This article addresses the issue of migration in the context of the phenomenon of neo-nomadism and its effects on the policies of the member states of the European Union, as well as its institutions and agencies. The consequences of neo-nomadism are analyzed in regard to ​​the EU’s "extended borderland" on the example of the activities of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) in the Central Mediterranean. Frontex’s joint operations "Triton" and "Themis" serve as a useful frame of reference in examining this agency’s "agent power" expressed in activities concerning migratory movements in the EU's "extended borderland". The hypothesis developed in this article holds that the dynamics of mobility resulting from the specific features of neo-nomadism activates the "agent power" of entities involved in mobility and border management in two forms: inclusionary, for humanitarian reasons, and exclusionary, for the sake of security. As an agency responsible for supporting the management of the EU's external borders and implementing return policy, Frontex has concentrated its agent power on securing territory, borders and population at the expense of humanitarian search-and-rescue operations. Joint operations "Triton" and "Themis" have clearly highlighted the trend towards an exclusionary approach to migrants. Post-functionalism referring to the original conceptualisation put forward by Hooghe and Marx is the theoretical frame adopted in the present study. The research method is qualitative, based on desk research includng the analysis and interpretation of primary and secondary sources.

Niniejszy artykuł podejmuje w formie interdyscyplinarnej analizy prawno-politologicznej problematykę włączenia acquis Schengen do prawa Unii Europejskiej oraz prawa krajowego państw członkowskich UE w świetle koncepcji hybrydowego reżimu zarządzania granicami i terytorium. Zgodnie z nią, acquis Schengen stymulowało proces krzyżowania interesów bezpieczeństwa wewnętrznego i ochrony granic państw członkowskich z ponadnarodowym imperatywem ideologicznym w odniesieniu do zasady swobodnego przepływu osób. Hipotezą badawczą w tym artykule jest założenie, że inkorporacja acquis Schengen do prawa UE ugruntowała hybrydowość prawno-instytucjonalnej konstrukcji UE po wejściu w życie traktatu amsterdamskiego wskutek sprzeczności logiki przetargu politycznego na poziomie międzyrządowym i wertykalnego spill-over wygenerowanego na poziomie ponadnarodowym w wymiarze instytucjonalnym i polityczno-decyzyjnym. Wnioski wskazują na ukonstytuowanie w wyniku "schengenizacji" przestrzeni wolności, bezpieczeństwa i sprawiedliwości UE, w której zasada swobodnego przepływu osób skutkowała zróżnicowaniem mechanizmów adaptacyjnych państw w odniesieniu do zdeterminowanego ideologicznie projektu transformacji systemu zarządzania terytorium i granicami w Unii Europejskiej. This article takes up in the form of an interdisciplinary legal and political analysis the issue of the incorporation of the Schengen acquis into European Union law and the national legal systems of the EU member states in the light of the concept of a hybrid system of territorial governance. Accordingly, the Schengen acquis stimulated the process of intersecting the interests of internal security and the protection of Member States' borders with the supranational ideological imperative with regard to the principle of free movement of persons. The argument developed in this article is that the incorporation of the Schengen acquis into EU law consolidated hybridity of the legal and institutional construction of the EU after the Amsterdam Treaty as a result of the contradiction between the logic of political bargain at the intergovernmental level and the vertical spillover generated at the supranational level in the institutional and decision-making dimensions. The conclusions point to the emergence, as a result of "schengenisation", of the area of freedom, security and justice in the EU, in which the principle of free movement of people brought about diversification of the states' adaptation mechanisms in relation to the ideologically determined project of transformation of the system of management of the territory and borders within the European Union.