Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, has been one of the keystone tools in the militarisation of EU borders, and reflects the transformation of the Union away from a system of coordination-based border management towards a more defense-focused system. By the year 2025 it has operations that range over air, sea and land and incorporates new surveillance and defense technologies that will fight irregular migration and perceived outer threats.
The recent changes, such as Frontex-Bulgarian Border police cooperation are good examples of this change. The situational awareness has increased across thousands of kilometers due to the use of both long and short-endurance drones in the program that transmit real-time data. These projects are also a sign of increased dependence on what analysts term as border veillance, a blended approach to digital surveillance and physical suppression by the EU.
Frontex currently gathers and processes extensive data through satellites, sensors and aerial systems and is able to respond proactively to cross-border flows. This movement however poses some serious doubts about privacy, monitoring, and responsibility. Analysts caution that adopting the use of artificial intelligence in border security may only serve to promote discrimination and misidentification since AI systems are not usually judgmental.
Pushbacks in the Mediterranean and the humanitarian dilemma
The EU borders have been militarised most evidently on the Mediterranean. The increased presence of Frontex in the sea, which is aimed to reduce smuggling and illegal entries, has become the object of regular criticism of humanitarian groups and international observers. In early 2025, the agency was once again linked to pushback operations, which include intercepting migrants and sending them to unsafe areas without proper asylum processes.
These have been recorded to be carried out in collaboration with national coast guards especially in the eastern and central Mediterranean. Although denied by the authorities, video footage and civil observation indicate systematic involvement in or involvement in forced returns. Such actions are inconsistent with the principle of non-refoulement in the 1951 Refugee Convention that outlaws the sending of people back to their home countries where they are at risk of persecution or personal injury.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty international still allege that Frontex concerns itself more with deterring than rescuing. The humanitarian cost of securitization is highlighted by the fact that the number of deaths at sea remained very high. Although Frontex claims that its new drone and satellite technology enables it to detect distress faster, not all rescues are timely or even avoided, or sometimes assigned to the coast guards of third countries, like the Libyan, where kidnapping and torture are known to thrive.
The complexity of Mediterranean jurisdiction and externalization
The difficulties in the operational issues of the Mediterranean are based on maritime zones of responsibilities. Jurisdictional waters exist between EU member states and third countries causing confusion on who has the rescue and disembarkation responsibilities. In reality, this disintegration allows EU states to outsource enforcement to non-EU associates- what critics refer to as externalization of border control.
Such deals with Libya, Egypt and Tunisia demonstrate that the migration management has been included in the wider geopolitical bargaining. In 2024, the EU renewed its support in the operations of the Libyan coast guard, when there were reported cases of abuse of the intercepted migrants. This is a successful way of spreading EU authority outside of its territory and without legal responsibility. The externalization approach brings out the political trade off between protecting the integrity of the border and protecting international humanitarian norms.
Legal disputes over sovereignty and the EU’s border mandate
Another legal and constitutional controversy concerning the limits of EU authority has been the growing mandate of Frontex. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is now hearing several cases of the liability of the agency in the violation of human rights. The key to these proceedings is whether Frontex should share the responsibility with the member states in case of illegal pushbacks during collective actions.
Lawyers believe that the present design of the operations of the agency generates the gray zone of responsibility. Host states have direct control over their territory and Frontex coordinates intelligence and logistics. This separation makes redress to victims to be complicated because neither of the parties is entirely responsible. The agency Fundamental Rights Office, which is internal, has been accused of lack of investigative capabilities as well as lack of transparency.
In 2024, the Schengen Border Code was amended again, but the previously vague borders between national and European jurisdiction were further indistinct. Member states are henceforth more at liberty to present temporary internal border inspections on the grounds of migration and security issues. As early as 2025, France, Germany, and Austria were still using such controls, which indicated the slow weakening of the principle of free movement in Schengen. Although such measures have been presented as temporary, there is a risk of normalizing the inner borders and undermining the EU.
Political dynamics shaping border militarisation
Borders militarisation emphasizes more substantial shifts in politics in the Union. Through the migration crises of the 2010s and 2020s, migration management has ceased being a humanitarian concern and has become a key element of EU security policy. The governments on both ends of the political spectrum are now able to present the issue of border control as an existential concern that is linked with national sovereignty and domestic stability.
This change is reflected in the budgetary growth of Frontex. Its funding is indicative of unprecedented institutional empowerment as it has increased by more than EUR500 million in 2020, to well above EUR1.5 billion in 2025. The increase in the number of staff by the agency; its aim is to have 10,000 standing corps officers has rendered the agency one of the largest operational bodies in the EU. However its rapid militarisation has beaten up the construction of efficient checks and balances. Critics of the European parliament still insist that auditing and independent human rights monitoring should be tougher on all activities.
There is also stiffening of public discourse in Europe. The political ascendancy of nationalist and anti-immigration parties in a few member states compels the centrist governments to take more stringent positions. Consequently, a humanitarian aspect of migration policy tends to take back to the background of defense, deterrence, and technological advantage.
Technology, accountability, and the future of European border control
The prospective course of the Frontex and militarisation of the European frontiers will probably be determined by the ability of the respective Union to balance technological growth with legal and ethical responsibility. Biometric recognition and predictive analytics are artificial intelligence (AI) systems used in risk assessment models that are already changing the way the risks are assessed. These technologies allow the earlier intervention but increase the ethical issues regarding the data abuse and the algorithms bias.
The EU institutions have started to write new digital protections. In early 2025, the European Data Protection Supervisor recommended transparency in the use of AI in border operations that clarified the entitlement to privacy and minimization of data. Nevertheless, the implementation is still uneven between the member states, and controls are still developing.
As migration patterns shift due to climate change and regional conflicts, the EU’s reliance on high-tech border security is poised to deepen. Frontex’s expanding drone fleet, satellite partnerships with ESA, and joint naval patrols signify a long-term structural transformation rather than a temporary response to the crisis. The central question now confronting policymakers is whether these tools can coexist with the EU’s foundational values of human rights, solidarity, and freedom of movement.
The militarisation of EU borders represents a defining test for Europe’s political identity in 2025. Frontex’s transformation from a coordination body into a semi-military institution symbolizes the Union’s broader struggle to balance control with compassion, sovereignty with solidarity. As drones patrol the skies and algorithms monitor the seas, Europe’s borders are becoming not only lines of defense but mirrors of its evolving democratic conscience raising the question of how far the pursuit of security can go before it reshapes the very idea of Europe itself.
