by Dr. Bernd Kasparek
Thursday, June 4, 2026 – 7:00 p.m. – Seminar Room 7, Rabinstr. 8
Organized by the Department of Political Education
The reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which will take effect on June 12, 2026, represents a major turning point for the European migration and border regime. The original CEAS was part of the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty’s attempt to create a coordinated European migration, asylum, and border policy. In addition to the original CEAS, the European border agency Frontex was established, and the Schengen system of external borders was expanded. The European system was characterized by technological advancements and management rationalities, but it was unable to fully assert itself against the policy preferences of the member states. With the “summer of migration” in 2015, the European migration and border regime entered a crisis. Over the following years, this crisis was addressed through a shift toward more repressive policies, a trend rooted in the general global turn toward authoritarian forms of governance. The lecture will examine the European border regime, its components and rationales, as well as its restructuring after 2015.
Dr. Bernd Kasparek is a cultural anthropologist and mathematician. His research focuses on border and migration studies, Europeanization, and (digital) infrastructures. In his dissertation, he conducted an ethnographic study of the European border protection agency Frontex. From 2017 to 2020, he worked on the Horizon 2020-funded research project “RESPOND: Multi-level governance of mass migration in Europe and beyond.” Bernd Kasparek is an editorial board member of the journal movements, a member of the network for critical migration and border regime research kritnet, and a board member of the research association bordermonitoring.eu e.V.