ABSTRACT
As much as member states have always shown an ambivalent attitude towards the possibility of creating a proper EU border police, Frontex's growth has, since it began work 15 years ago, been spectacular. Frontex has evolved as a hybrid agency, caught between two apparently insoluble antinomies: the antinomy, on the one hand, between the desire to reinforce supranationalism in border governance and its intergovernmental institutional set-up; and the antinomy, on the other, between its actual role as a security agency and the humanitarian values enshrined by its legal framework. The issue of ensuring adequate protections for migrants’ fundamental rights has over the years become particularly sensitive in relation to the containment strategies implemented in the Euro-Mediterranean region. The creation – albeit currently at an embryonic stage – of a supranational border police can be considered a key episode in the development of the EU's material constitution.
