ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to deconstruct one of the strongest myths of political discourses: the statement that controls is linked with the place where the borders of the European Union (EU) run. It reveals the connection between the state and the frontier and analyzes the different actors playing a role in controlling the movements of people inside the EU but across the borders of its member States and beyond the EU when people want to enter. It is taken for granted that the state has the right to control its borders and to differentiate between its citizens and foreigners, and to treat them differently. The chapter discusses the symbolic politics of the professionals of politics concerning border controls and how the terminology used in political science for describing the relations of frontiers and controls are prisoners of the state of mind behind all these assumptions about the role of the state or the future of the European Union as a quasi-state.
