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Die Corona-Pandemie hat nicht nur Schwächen und Stärken im ­deutschen und französischen Gesundheitssektor offengelegt, sondern auch in der Gesundheitskooperation zwischen beiden ­Ländern. Dieser widmet sich die folgende dritte und letzte Studie des DGAP-Monitoring-Projekts zur deutsch-französischen grenzüberschreitenden Zusammenarbeit (GRÜZ). Sie untersucht die Ursachen für bestehende Mängel und zeigt: Systematische Datenerhebung, besserer Austausch und Lehren aus der Pandemie können die bilaterale Gesundheitskooperation verbessern - sowie Vorbildcharakter für den gesamteuropäischen Einigungsprozess haben.

The aim of this article is an attempt to answer the questions: how should Poland's policy towards the crisis on the border with Belarus be assessed from the humanitarian and human rights perspective? How should a country, in this case Poland, behave towards those crossing the border of that country, in a situation of deceitful importation and the subsequent use of innocent immigrants/ refugees as tools for hostile actions against a neighboring state by the authoritarian regime of Belarus? The article also attempts to answer a question about the challenges faced by non-governmental organisations and the important role they play in a situation where state policy is at variance with international law and basic ethical principles whereby human rights are violated. The analysis of the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border, based on the assumption that each state has a duty to protect its border, but at the same time it has a duty to protect human life and to make sure that the law is respected on that border, allows for the conclusion that Polish policy is in conflict with international law and basic ethical principles. The article also shows the challenges faced by civic organisations and the very important role that civic organisations play in this situation.

Bordering processes take place through different means and are carried out by different actors. Laws and regulatory activities have a prominent place among border-drawing instruments: Their capacity to mobilise actors, allocate funds, and determine procedures and remedies make them a formidable and multifaceted bordering tool. It is therefore not surprising to notice that EU institutions have heavily relied on regulatory tools when the need to resort to new bordering processes emerged in the aftermath of the so-called migration crisis. This article delves into a particular (re-)bordering process emerging from the legislative proposals attached to the Commission's 2020 New Pact on Migration and Asylum: the attempt to uncouple the duty to fully respect and protect fundamental rights from the reality of migrants' presence on national territory. This objective is pursued by the proposed legislative package through non-entry fictions, capable of untangling the legal notion of "border" from its physical reality for the purpose of immigration law (only). The analysis of the relevant provisions provides the reader with a number of insights into the transformation of EU borders. First, borders (as defined by the law) are subject to a peculiar legal regime. Secondly, the legal notion of borders is increasingly independent of its physical/geographical correspondence. Thirdly, legal border lines are not linked to any place on the ground, but rather follow irregular migrants as they move, confining them to areas of less law, no matter their location.

Life in the border regions within the European Union has become normal for many people, especially for younger generations. Crossing the borders is part of everyday life. In recent years, until the refugee crisis, national borders had lost significance due to their increased permeability, although neither borders nor border demarcations have ever become meaningless. National policies and frameworks determine fundamental orientations that have specific implications on both sides of borders. This is associated with processes of inclusion and exclusion, (regional) identities, feelings of belonging and issues concerning a sense of home. Against this background, this paper provides a theory-based introduction to the central constructs and concepts that gain significance in the cross-border context: border(s) and border demarcations, (spatial and regional) identities and home. Identification processes are illuminated and categorised using the example of the Greater Region.

What is life in a border region like? This paper aims to answer this question, drawing on empirical research in four twin villages in the Greater Region. The findings, based on a postal survey in the twin municipalities and face-to-face interviews, show that both sides see the border situation as bringing financial and practical advantages. The cooperation between the municipalities is generally described very positively. In regard to a sense of identification, there are feelings of belonging to both the nation state and the (cross-border) region, although there are differences between those surveyed in the different countries. In terms of the importance of the border, there is general agreement that it is scarcely noticed anymore, and that since its disappearance life has become more convenient and has benefited. Yet there various challenges can also be identified, which represent tasks for the coming years.

Whereas war is the continuation of politics by other means, a new space between diplomacy and open conflict is now becoming available for state and non-state actors, tempting them with the promise of achieving a strategic advantage over an opponent without risking the escalation of the conflict to the level of kinetic aggression. From that perspective, the ongoing shift of states and societies into cyberspace is becoming extremely interesting. As it blurs national borders, it offers an excellent dimension in which to exercise non-war activities, enabling reduction of kinetic aggression in the three basic dimensions of warfare (land, air, and sea) and providing new means of reaching one’s political objectives. The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it discusses the changing nature of borders and examines the impact of non-war doctrine on the functions played by national borders. Secondly, it analyzes how states utilize these activities to achieve political goals and gain strategic advantage over opponents, as well as to what extent they foster de-bordering.

This article explores unaccompanied adolescent minors' (UAMs) experiences of deterrent practices at internal EU borders while being on the move. Previous studies have acknowledged the securitisation of external borders through gatekeeping and fencing practices; however, there is a recent and continued renationalisation of internal EU borders by the member states. Like other migrants who are travelling irregularly, UAMs also often face harsh living conditions and repeated rights violations in border areas, regardless of their specific rights to protection and psychological needs. Research has called for a renewed focus on migrant children's experiences as active agents at the borders, but until now studies exploring UAMs' experiences at internal EU borders remain scarce. Drawing on Agamben's notion of "legal exception", we seek to explore how deterrent practices are confusingly intertwined and affect UAMs' psychological wellbeing and subjectivities in the Ventimiglia border space. Participant observations and in-depth interviews conducted with UAMs at the French-Italian border provide unique insights into how these bordering practices affect migrant children’s legal and psychological safety and reshape their subjectivities. This contribution highlights UAMs' conflicting needs and feelings of institutional "abandonment" when left without institutional welfare protection in the border space, on the one hand, and feeling pressured to act responsibly towards their relatives, on the other.

The EU has been under severe strain as a free-travel area. The migration crisis of the mid-2010s and the current Covid-19 pandemic have exerted a negative impact on the freedom of movement in the EU and the undisturbed crossing of internal borders within the Schengen area. Direct effects and long-term consequences of the prolonged crisis have shown that the dynamics of integration, which are determined by spillover effects of transnational processes, are counterposed by a politicization of domestically-embedded issues of security governance. This assumption underpins the postfunctionalist approach to European integration proposed originally by Hooghe and Marks. The tendency towards longstanding derogations from the Schengen regime, termed "internal rebordering", should be juxtaposed with efforts of the European Commission towards a full restoration of the Schengen area without controls at internal borders. The argument developed in this article holds that internal rebordering has been embedded in the logic of the EU as an area of freedom, security, and justice comprising the Schengen area as its territorial manifestation. The rebordering processes in the EU and in the Schengen area have questioned the principle of "constraining dissensus" underlaying the postfunctionalist approach.

Already, the 21st century has seen an unprecedented increase in cross-border movements of people, goods, information, and financial capital. Numerous incentives and facilitators have expanded international interconnectedness and mobility, so altering the conventional nature and functions of state borders, as captured by the "new mobilities" paradigm. Yet the weaponization of global economic interdependencies and other trends towards deglobalization mean there is now a growing pressure on governments to re-establish the conventional attributes of borders. Against the current mobility and security backdrop, this collection of articles takes stock of the meaning, roles, and practices of border activities. Now is the moment to consider the special role that borders perform as an institution of state security in a contemporary world exposed to massive international flows of people and goods, as well as technologically-driven control and management systems.

Frontier settlements played a key role in the formation of Israeli society and its territorial project. In the pre-statehood years and during the first decades after the establishment of the state of Israel, settling the frontiers formed one of the main national objectives, securing the nation's control over space while promoting a unified local identity. Appropriately, settlement practices and discourse focused on pioneer rural communities and industrial towns, with a clear emphasis on housing units and residential estates. With the privatisation of the local economy, the national settlement development mechanism was privatised as well, the former state-led enterprise was harnessed to the interests of the market, and the earlier focus on housing was thus replaced by a property-oriented approach. This article studies the transformations in Israeli frontier settlement practices while analysing their changing modes of spatial production and the terminology they relied on. Studying the development process of Tzur-Yitzhak and Harish, two Israeli localities on the border with the occupied Palestinian West Bank, this article demonstrates how they first emerged as small-scale rural settlements and eventually turned into corporate-led projects. Presenting the geopolitical and societal interests behind both case studies, as well as the manner their proposed planning altered over the years, this article illustrates the transforming modes of production and the evolution of the local settlement terminology, demonstrating the shift from a pioneer-oriented to a market-led frontier settlement.

Die vorliegende Arbeit unternimmt es, anhand des jüdischen Symbols des Eruvs Grenzziehungen und Raumansprüche in urbanen Umgebungen unter dem Gesichtspunkt interkultureller und interreligiöser Kommunikation und deren Scheitern zu analysieren. Sie widmet sich der Frage, wie sich durch unterschiedliche Machtansprüche in diesen Umgebungen Konflikte bilden und wie diese sich kommunikativ lösen lassen. Zum Verständnis heutiger komplexer ethnischer, ökonomischer, religiöser und sozialer Raumkonstellationen bedient sie sich der Konzepte globalisierter ethno- und ideoscapes, wie sie Arjun Appadurai für interkulturelle Räume vorgeschlagen hat. Für die kommunikationswissenschaftliche Analyse der erwähnten interkulturellen Konflikte bedient die Untersuchung sich der Unterscheidung zwischen interkulturellem und kulturspezifischem Vokabular in ähnlicher Weise, wie Richard Rottenburg Metacode und Kulturcode voneinander abgrenzt, um interkulturelle Aushandlungsprozesse auf der diskursiven Ebene zu beschreiben und entsprechende Lösungsvorschläge machen zu können. Aus der daraus hervorgehenden Verbindung neuerer Raumkonzepte und Vermittlungscodes wird ein Ansatz interkultureller Konfliktlösung in wandelbaren urbanen Szenarien vorgestellt., Using the Jewish symbol of the Eruv as an example, the present work undertakes to analyze border demarcations and spatial claims in urban environments from the point of view of intercultural and interreligious communication and their failure. It is devoted to the question of how conflicts are formed through different claims to power in these environments and how they can be resolved communicatively. To understand today’s complex ethnic, economic, religious and social constellations in urban spaces, the study uses the concepts of globalized ethno- and ideoscapes as proposed by Arjun Appadurai for intercultural spaces. To analyze intercultural conflicts within these scapes it makes use of the distinction between intercultural and culture-specific vocabulary in a similar way Richard Rottenburg distinguishes between metacode and cultural code in order to describe intercultural negotiation processes on the discursive level and to propose appropriate solutions. From the resulting combination of newer spatial concepts and mediating codes, an approach of intercultural conflict resolution in changeable urban scenarios is presented.

Rethinking the boundaries of Europe is an earnest exercise that calls for critical reconsideration of our existing spatio-temporal constructions. First of all, it should be established that this kind of an exercise does not only necessitate a re-mapping of the cartographical space within which "Europe" is placed, but more so a re-thinking of the intellectual space within which history is situated.

This in-depth monitoring study assesses the EU's capacity to handle migration. Why does the European Union respond so badly to migration crises? And why does it repeatedly allow itself to be blackmailed by neighboring states which extract concessions in return for holding back migrants? The ongoing situation at the EU's border to Belarus is no isolated incident. It reveals vulnerabilities resulting directly from the way the EU regulates its borders and international migration. Over the past decade, a pattern has emerged: the more the EU tries to defend the Schengen Area, its passport-free travel zone, the more vulnerable it makes itself.

The externalization of border control has been a central feature of the European Union's (EU) bordering strategy over the last three decades. How-ever, in recent years there have been several challenges and contestations of this strategy. The short but notable breakdown of external border control during the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis raised awareness that the EU relies heavily on cooperation with countries in the wider region. Moreover, recent negotiations by the EU with these third countries over cooperative migration management have involved considerable concessions and have been marked by new types of responses from the countries concerned. To make sense of these new dynamics in international cooperation on border control, the current paper combines the concept of "migration diplomacy" (İçduygu and Üstübici 2014; Adamson and Tsourapas 2019a) with recent sociological accounts of the side-effects of globalization and modernization (Beck 2016; Lessenich 2016). In the logic of externalization, destination countries outsource border controls to other countries that are expected to function as "gatekeepers" (Wallace 1996). This political strategy has ultimately (though inadvertently) strengthened the position of so-called "transit states" in engaging in migration diplomacy vis-á-vis EU member states, thus resulting in a new phase of contested externalization.

The extension of border controls beyond Europe's territory to regulate the flows of would-be migrants is a popular - and highly controversial - policy approach adopted by European governments. The present paper examines recent developments characterizing the externalization of border management in Europe, paying particular attention to the changes that have occurred during the COVID-19 global pandemic. This represents a time when mobility has been severely restricted in most of Europe (and the rest of the world). The aim is to map the impact of the pandemic on relevant "externalizing" policy instruments (e.g., visas, extra-territorial patrolling and surveillance, external processing of asylum claims, and offshore detention of migrants) and to assess their future trajectories. The paper shows that during the pandemic, the externalization of border controls has expanded and adapted to the new conditions. As a result, some of the key dynamics that define this policy arrangement have been recreated internally, a phe-nomenon referred to here as the "internalization of externalized border controls."

The globalizing forces of trade, capital movement, the circulation of information, and human mobility have challenged conventional understandings of borders as entry gates that are under the firm control of nation states. Some scholars have even assumed that nation states would eventually lose control of their borders due to new challenges. However, borders have proved to be resilient institutions as states have adapted and reinvented border controls in several ways. First, states have responded to new challenges by hardening their territorial boundaries through border fortifications. Second, governments have shifted border control to third countries by using tools such as visa policies or readmission agreements. Third, nation states have designed "smart borders" through biometric passports, shared databases, and digital surveillance technologies. Lastly, de-facto borders show that clearly delimited boundaries can be attractive to countries, even in regions with limited statehood.

This paper investigates four fortified borders: those between Hungary and Serbia, the USA and Mexico, Algeria and Morocco, and Pakistan and India. Starting from current border research, it asks how fortified borders control mobility, who is affected by fortifications, and how. Based on qualitative interviews, the paper finds that although all four borders are similarly fortified, they control mobility in different ways; while the Hungarian and the US border fences filter mobility, the two other borders instead block all forms of circulation. The paper conceptualizes these different types as filter borders and deadlock borders. It then examines their effects and analyzes not only how they are related to inequalities and power relations, but also how they can be used as resources. The filter borders reinforce the global gap in mobility rights by blocking migrants, whereas the deadlock borders also lead to increasing inequality within a country - between the capital and the border population - by cutting economic, social, and familial ties across the borderline. The two border types also indicate different relations between neighboring states; filter borders are related to a clear gap in wealth and power, with one state exploiting the fortification to its advantage. By contrast, at the deadlock borders, the power balance is more ambiguous and contested.

This article investigates how states design their border infrastructures. We attempt to link the characteristics of borders to specific socio-political contexts, with a particular focus on borders as material and physical structures that states set up in order to demarcate, control, and seal off their territory. For this purpose, we introduce the "border infrastructure data" that seeks to capture the infrastructure at the borderline. Our empirical investigation of all land borders worldwide (N=630) classifies border architecture into five categories - from relatively open to completely closed - that we describe respectively as "no-man's-land" borders, landmark borders, check-point borders, barrier borders, and fortified borders. While we find that checkpoint borders are by far the most common type of design, we also observe that barriers and fortified borders are frequently used, particularly on the Asian and European continents. Fortified borders are often put in place by relatively affluent states when there is a significant wealth gap with their neighboring countries. Barrier borders typically are erected by states to separate different political systems. Landmark borders are maintained among a community of equally democratic and affluent states. Lastly, "no-man's-land" borders are found between poor states.

Based on the conceptualizations of organized crime as both an enterprise and a form of governance, borderland as a spatial category, and borders as institutions, this paper looks at the politics of bordering practices by organized crime in the Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands. It posits that contrary to the common assumptions about transnational organized crime, criminal organizations not only blur or erode the border but rather enforce it to their own benefit. In doing so, these groups set norms to regulate socio-spatial practices, informal and illegal economies, and migration flows, creating overlapping social orders and, lastly, (re)shaping the borderland. Theoretically, the analysis brings together insights from political geography, border studies, and organized crime literature, while empirically, it draws on direct observation, criminal justice data, and in-depth interviews.

Objetivo/contexto: con base en el estudio de caso del departamento de Norte de Santander, el artículo presenta un análisis de las transformaciones en las dinámicas de violencia y conflicto y en la constelación de actores armados no estatales en la frontera colombo-venezolana luego de la firma del acuerdo de paz con las FARC. El estudio se basa en una perspectiva que considera las dinámicas del conflicto prolongado en Colombia y sus legados en los órdenes sociales, así como las particularidades que la condición de frontera trae consigo en términos de seguridad. Metodología: estudio de caso empírico basado en información recogida mediante entrevistas y observación no participante, así como en revisión de informes, prensa y bibliografía secundaria. Conclusión: la situación de violencia e inseguridad actual es el resultado de las dinámicas de un conflicto prolongado donde tres tipos de conflicto confluyen, interactúan y se retroalimentan: la guerra civil en Colombia, la violencia criminal, y la crisis migratoria y humanitaria producto de la crisis venezolana. En este marco se ha dado un fortalecimiento de un orden no estatal, mayor fragmentación de actores armados no estatales y competencia criminal. Originalidad: la existencia de abundante información sobre la situación de seguridad y violencia en la frontera colombo-venezolana en el periodo reciente contrasta con los pocos análisis académicos y desarrollos conceptuales al respecto. Este artículo intenta hacer una contribución mediante: a) un marco conceptual que conecta las literaturas sobre conflicto armado, órdenes sociales y seguridad en territorios fronterizos; b) análisis con base en información primaria que da cuenta tanto del fenómeno como del contexto., Objective/Context: Based on a case study of the Department of Norte de Santander, Colombia, this article analyzes the changes in the dynamics of violence and the composition of the armed non-State actors on the Colombian-Venezuelan borders after the signing of the peace agreement between the Colombian State and the FARC guerrilla. It focuses on the dynamics of the protracted conflict in Colombia, its impact on the social orders of this territory and the particular implications of the 'border effect' in terms of security. Methodology: This empirical study is based on information gathered from interviews and non-participatory observations, complemented by a review of official reports, newspaper articles and the secondary literature. Conclusion: The current situation of violence and insecurity is the result of the overlapping of three types of conflict which interact and mutually influence each other and have been caused by the civil war in Colombia, the activities of criminal gangs and the humanitarian crisis arising from the mass migration of Venezuelans to Colombia. Against this backdrop, there has been a strengthening of a non-State order, an increasing fragmentation of the armed non-state actors and an internecine warfare between criminal gangs. Originality: While a large body of information about the violent situation on the Colombian-Venezuelan border has emerged in recent years, there have been few academic studies of the subject so far. This article aims to make a contribution to this field of study, by presenting: a) a conceptual framework that draws on studies of the armed conflicts, social orders and security of borderlands in other regions, and b) an analysis, based on primary sources, of the phenomenon and the context.

In this article I critically interrogate the ways researchers produce knowledge about the making and unmaking of borders. I do so by focusing on social processes of boundary-drawing that have dramatically intensified since the 2015 summer of displacements in Europe. I think through some of the methodological possibilities and conundrums that arise if we try to make visible the unarticulated social conventions underlying the everyday thresholds of belonging that determine who is permitted in, and who has to remain outside, the affective socio-political space of societies. By drawing on my own research experiences, I show why methodologies aimed at lending marginalized people a voice often fail to capture the voiceless, silent nature of these boundary-drawing practices. I suggest that in order to bring the invisible barbed wires permeating societies into the open, we need to develop phenomenologies of everyday exclusionary practices, or "cultures of unwelcome". Through my ethnographic encounters with marginalized refugee youth and individuals who believe that the influx of refugees is a threat to their values and ways of life, I argue for more nuanced research methodologies that allow us to better capture the everyday social processes underlying acts of boundary-drawing. I suggest that approaching border work as an intersubjective, worldly phenomenon involves paying attention to the experiences of individuals who find themselves pushed to the margins of society, and to those who actively participate in keeping people and groups marked as other locked out.

Based on research conducted among EU border enforcement officials, this article embarks on a discussion about complicity and critical analysis within border and migration studies. The study of borders and migration in the context of the EU is a highly politicized issue, and several scholars have pointed out that critical research easily comes to serve into a “knowledge loop” (Hess, 2010), or play part in the proliferation of a "migration business" (Andersson, 2014). In this article, I will argue that in order to not reproduce the vocabulary or object-making of that which we study, we need to study processes of scale-making (Tsing, 2000) and emphasise the multiplicity of borders (Andersen & Sandberg, 2012). In the article, I therefore present three strategies for critical analysis: First, I suggest critically assessing the locations of fieldwork, and the ways in which these either mirror or distort dominant narratives about the borders of Europe. Secondly, I probe into the differences and similarities between the interlocutors’ and researchers’ objects of inquiry. Finally, I discuss the purpose of "being there", in the field, in relation to ethnographic knowledge production. I ask whether we might leave behind the idea of ethnography as evidence or revelations, and rather focus on ethnography as additions. In conclusion, I argue that instead of critical distance, we as scholars should nurture the capacity of critical complicity.

This thematic issue is a collection of articles reflecting on methods as border devices of hierarchical inclusion spanning migration, mobility and border studies. It maps some key concerns and responses emerging from what we call academic backstages of migration, mobility and border research by younger academics. These concerns are around (dis)entangling positions beyond Us/Them (i.e. researcher/researched), delinking from the spectacle of migration and deviating from the categories of migration apparatuses. While these concerns are not new in themselves the articles however situate these broader concerns shaping migration, mobility and border studies within specific contexts, dilemmas, choices, doubts, tactics and unresolved paradoxes of doing fieldwork. The aim of this thematic issue is not to prescribe "best methods" but in fact to make space for un-masking practices of methods as unfinished processes that are politically and ethically charged, while nevertheless shedding light in (re)new(ed) directions urgent for migration, mobility and border studies. Such an ambition is inevitably partial and situated, rather than comprehensive and all-encompassing. The majority of the contributions then enact and suggest different modes of reflexivity, ranging from reflexive inversion, critical complicity, collective self-inquiry, and reflexive ethnography of emotions, while other contributions elaborate shifts in research questions and processes based on failures, and doubts emerging during fieldwork. We invite the readers to then read the contributions against one another as a practice of attuning to what we call a ‘cacophony of academic backstages,’ or in other words, to the ways in which methods are never settled while calling attention to the politics of knowledge production unfolding in everyday fieldwork practices.

Die seit Anfang Mai andauernde Konfrontation zwischen indischen und chinesischen Truppen im Himalaya hat sich zur schwersten Krise in den Beziehungen beider Staa­ten seit 45 Jahren zugespitzt. Am 15. Juni wurden erstmals seit 1975 bei einem Zwi­schenfall 20 indische und eine unbekannte Zahl chinesischer Soldaten getötet. Die gegenwärtige Krise hat im Unterschied zu früheren weiter reichende territoriale und politische Dimensionen. Sie erschüttert das bisherige Grenzregime und belastet das mühsam aufgebaute Vertrauensverhältnis zwischen Premierminister Modi und Prä­sident Xi. Die Konfrontation ist aber auch eine Belastungsprobe für Indiens strate­gische Autonomie. Dieser Grundpfeiler der indischen Außenpolitik beinhaltet auch den Anspruch auf eine eigenständige Rolle in den geostrategischen Auseinander­setzungen zwischen China und den USA im Indo-Pazifik. (Autorenreferat)

The confrontation between Indian and Chinese troops in the Himalayas, which has been ongoing since the beginning of May, has escalated into the most serious crisis in relations between the two countries in 45 years. On 15 June, for the first time since 1975, 20 Indian and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers were killed in an inci­dent. The current crisis, unlike previous ones, has wider territorial and political dimensions. It shakes the previous border regime and strains the relationship of trust that was laboriously built up between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping. The confrontation is also a test of India’s strategic autonomy. This corner­stone of Indian foreign policy also includes the claim to an independent role in the geostrategic tensions between China and the United States in the Indo-Pacific. (author's abstract)

The massive mobility restrictions in the Schengen zone that were imposed to control the Corona pandemic are to be lifted from mid-June onwards. If a second wave of infec­tions does not follow suit, the German EU Council Presidency may oversee the end of all remaining internal border controls. The reform of the Schengen regulation, which has been overdue since the migration crisis, can be relaunched. The link between secure external borders and internal freedom of movement should have already been reappraised. Looking forward, targeted checks on persons for reasons of public health must be better coordinated. The forthcoming EU pact on migration and asylum will be even more difficult to agree on, however. Access to asylum procedures must be guaranteed without fail, despite national responsibility for public health. (author's abstract)

The negotiating mandates for the next round of Brexit talks are on the table. The Euro­pean Union is making talks on a deal regulating EU/UK trade from 1 January 2021 conditional on reaching a fisheries agreement first - originally by July, although the precise timetable may be derailed by the corona crisis. The negotiating mandates diverge in significant respects: The European Union wants to safeguard its Single Market with its strong, shared regulation. That is also reflected in its recently pub­lished draft proposal for a trade deal. The United Kingdom seeks liberation from EU trade rules. These differences are substantial, and significant compromises will be needed if the talks are to be brought to a successful conclusion. Intelligent prioritisation and structuring could allow resolution of certain details to be postponed until a later date. (author's abstract)

Seit Ende Februar liegen die Verhandlungsmandate der Europäischen Union (EU) und des Vereinigten Königreichs (VK) für das Abkommen vor, das die Handelsbeziehungen zwischen beiden ab dem 1. Januar 2021 regeln soll. Bedingung für dieses Handels-abkommen ist für die EU ein Fischereiabkommen, das sogar schon bis Juli getroffen werden soll, selbst wenn nun wegen der Corona-Krise der genaue Zeitplan gefährdet ist. Die Verhandlungsmandate weisen erhebliche Unterschiede auf: Die EU will das bis­lang im gemeinsamen Binnenmarkt Erreichte an gemeinschaftlicher, starker Regu­lie­rung auch für die Zukunft sichern. Dies spiegelt sich in dem jüngst veröffentlichten europäischen Verhandlungsvorschlag. Ziel des VK hingegen ist es, zukünftig nicht mehr an EU-Handelsregeln gebunden zu sein. Diese Differenzen sind substanziell - ein Ab­schluss der Verhandlungen wird große Kompromisse brauchen. Intelligente Vertrags­konstruktionen könnten vorsehen, konkrete Probleme nach Vertragsschluss zu lösen. (Autorenreferat)