Ad Hoc Group members speak at FRONTEM research seminar

Members of the Ad Hoc Group for North-South and East-West Cooperation participated in a research seminar as part of a FRONTEM network visit exploring the Irish border. FRONTEM members from France, Germany, Belgium and Canada heard from Ad Hoc Member organisations Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), Longford Women’s Link, WOMEN’STEC, Bolster Community, and Creative Spark on issues of cross-border mobility, current challenges to the Common Travel Area, and the influence of the border on the work of community and civil society groups on the island. The event was kindly hosted by Creative Spark, a centre for creativity and innovation in Dundalk.

The Frontem network aims to develop a critical assessment of the model of a Europe without borders. According the network, it is based on ‘the assumption that the EU has developed a unilateral view on the border which essentially only takes into account its economic character whilst neglecting other aspects, which are more symbolic or political’. The network takes an interdisciplinary approach between European Studies and Border Studies, and is undertaking an exchange of knowledge and practices on five models of border management in the EU:

• ‘the Franco-German border of reconciliation
• the fortress border between the UK and France
• the invisible border between Ireland and Northern Ireland,
• the model border of minority integration between Denmark and Germany
• the dialectical (open-closed) border between Rumania and Hungary’

To learn more about the work of the Frontem network, click here.