Shifting Racialised Borders and the Right to Exit Within Europe

Abstract

This paper investigates how countries within Europe limit and control the right to exit of negatively racialised minorities, especially Roma. Based on a socio-legal analysis of four case studies, the paper argues that ‘countries of origin’ limit the right to exit in collaboration with possible countries of destination. They do so by making different multilateral and bilateral agreements, which promise countries of origin a sort of reward (like visa-free travel for majority citizens), while countries of destination use it as a ‘remote control’ to prevent access to their territory to unwanted migrants. The paper discusses the following examples: first, the case of the UK's border officers being stationed at the Prague airport, disproportionately not allowing Roma to board flights to the UK. Second, it discusses the incentives France used to discourage Romani EU citizens from leaving Romania and Bulgaria towards France. Third, it investigates European Parliament restrictions on the visa-free regime, should there be a greater number of Romani asylum seekers from non-EU former Yugoslav countries. And fourth, the impediments Romani refugees faced when trying to exit Ukraine after the full-scale Russian invasion.