The implementation of the EU acquis on illegal immigration by the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe: Challenges and contradictions

One of the major issues in the process of EU eastward enlargement has been the ability of the candidate countries to assume membership of the Schengen zone and to effectively guard the external border of the Union post-accession. The debate is inextricably linked with the development of the EU as an 'area of freedom, security and justice' which has resulted in increasing EU action in matters related to illegal immigration and organised crime, and arguably a reproduction of the Schengen repressive logic within the EU. In this context, a condition of membership for candidate countries is the full implementation of the EU acquis on illegal immigration and border controls. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the challenges facing these countries towards the achievement of this goal. The analysis will focus on the Czech and Slovak Republics, until recently in different accession 'waves', and Poland, a 'first-wave' country with a different geopolitical position. The paper will attempt to demonstrate that the attainment of the highly repressive EU acquis in the field - which is mainly the result of a consistent securitisation of migration in EU policy discourse and legislation - not only fails to correspond to a clearly defined problem, but also poses to candidate countries a series of multifaceted challenges (legal, socio-political, economic, organisational and last, but not least, symbolic) which, if disregarded, may create more problems than those the acquis attempts to address.