Narrating Fortress Europe: Politicians’ Border Narratives in European Border Regions

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2026 (online)

This co-authored article of B-SHAPES WP3  researchers Katja Sarmiento-Mirwaldt (corresponding author), Peter Balogh, Artur Bohac, Hynek Böhm, Pierrick Bruyaz, Oriana Miraka, Lukasz Moll, Sara Svensson and Birte Wassenberg analyzes how parties in border regions narrated borders during the 2024 European elections, drawing on interviews with candidates and campaigners from four internal EU border regions. Across party families and levels of Euroscepticism, three narratives recur: open internal borders as desirable and beneficial, internal border closures as disruptive of everyday cross-border life, and open internal borders as contingent on stronger control at the EU's external borders. The findings show that internal openness and external control are frequently narrated as mutually dependent. They also suggest that contestation over European integration is often articulated through selective border narratives, in which support for Schengen and free movement can coexist with exclusionary demands for stronger external border control.

Navigating re-borderings: resilience strategies of national minorities in border regions

European Planning Studies, 2026 (online)

This co-authored article of B-SHAPES WP4 researchers Elzbieta Opilowska (corresponding author), Johanna Mitterhofer, Alice Engl, Marcus Nicolson, Martin Klatt, Hynek Böhm and Peter Balogh digs into the lives of border region minorities facing re-bordering in the Schengen borderlands. Borderland minorities have a different border life because of their linguistic, cultural and family-ties to the kin-state on the other side of the border. Minorities have experienced the drastic border closure during the Covid-19 pandemic as a cut of their lifeline, previously unimaginable. The article is based on our fieldwork in five European border regions home to national minorities.

Narrating Europe from the Borders: A Media Analysis of European Integration

Special Section, Borders in Globalization Review 7(1), 2025

This special section, edited by B-SHAPES researchers Birte Wassenberg and Pierrick Bruyas, examines how European integration is discursively constructed in regional media located in internal EU borderlands. Drawing on research from the Horizon Europe project B-SHAPES, it compares four regions—the Franco-German Upper Rhine, the German-Polish-Czech triangle, the Danish-Swedish Øresund region, and the Slovak-Hungarian borderlands—through media analysis covering 2019–2022. The special section argues that borders are not merely territorial facts but also narrative and symbolic constructions, continuously produced through public discourse. By focusing on local and regional media rather than elite or national arenas, it highlights how Europe is narrated “from below” through everyday experiences of mobility, crisis, cooperation, and disruption. Particular attention is paid to the tension between bordering and debordering during the COVID-19 pandemic. The section shows that regional media reveal both common patterns and region-specific variations in how the EU, European integration, and Euroscepticism are framed at the Union’s internal frontiers.

Europe in the Shadows: ambivalent border narratives in minority media in European borderlands

Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2025 (online)

This co-authored article of B-SHAPES WP4  researchers Marcus Nicolson, Alice Engl, Johanna Mitterhofer, Elżbieta Opiłowska, Martin Klatt, Péter Balogh and Damian Bączkiewicz explores how minority news media report on borders and Europe during moments of perceived crisis across five European borderland contexts: in Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, and Slovakia. Specifically, we investigate the role of key de- and re-bordering events, including the 2015 so-called ‘migration crisis’ and the COVID-19 pandemic, in shaping perceptions of borders and the European project. The analysis uncovers how border narratives relate to the wider EU project, and reveals that open borders are of particular importance to borderland communities, who feel increasingly detached from state-level decision makers.

Multilayered Borders as a Method for Studying Tourism Destinations: A Case of Northern European Border Regions

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2024 (online)

This co-authored article of B-SHAPES WP5 researchers Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola, Dorte Jagetic Andersen, Fredriika Jakola, Tomas Nilson and Sara Svensson problematizes tourism destination development in the European borderlands of Denmark–Germany, Sweden–Denmark and Sweden–Finland, where border crossing has been relatively free for decades, except for the time of Covid-19 pandemic border restrictions in 2020–2021. The research contributes to border studies and tourism studies by developing a framework for analyzing tourism destinations through the prism of the multilayered border, with a focus on destination images, attractions, and hosts. The research complements previous studies on tourism development and cross-border partnership in the European Union territory by investigating multiple tourism destinations in the border regions and by contemplating to what extent borders form a resource for destination promotion in the aftermath of the pandemic. The examination of regional tourism development through the prism of borders informs us about the compatibility of the idea of a “borderless” Europe with border region “realities.”