i This article speaks of ‘EUrope’ throughout. In this way it seeks to problematise frequently employed usages that equate the EU with Europe and Europe with the EU and suggests, at the same time, that EUrope is not reducible to the institutions of the EU. ii Interviews have been conducted on the Greek island of Lesvos in August 2020 with UNHCR, IOM, Greek authorities (Reception and Identification Services), with some NGOs (Doctors without Borders, Legal Center Lesvos and HIAS). iii Walters (2011: 151 and 146) writes that his “use of the term humanitarian border is designed in part to emphasize that we are dealing here with a singularity, something new” and warns against linear narratives, contending that while we analyse humanitarian borders, we need to consider that borders “are also taking other forms.” iv In the Aegean region, increasing geopolitical tensions between Turkey vis-a-vis Greece and the EU have considerably impacted migratory movements even before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. After the Turkish government declared its borders ‘open’ in late February 2020, thousands of migrant sought to cross to Greece and were met with violence exerted by Greek forces along land and sea borders. v http://www.immigrazione.biz/upload/decreto_interministeriale_n_150_del_07-04-2020.pdf vi http://www.protezionecivile.gov.it/amministrazione-trasparente/provvedimenti/-/content-view/view/1250434 vii It is important to stress that the official closure of Italian ports passed quite unnoticed, and it was de facto widely accepted by the population, both because the national debate was monopolised by the Covid-19 emergency and because the political coalition which is currently in power is not a right-wing government - unlike when Matteo Salvini firstly closed the ports in mid-2018. viii Interview with Doctors without Borders, conducted in Lesvos, August 21, 2020. ix Skype interview with Prepaid Financial Services, June 25, 2020. x At that time, migrants who were about to cross to Greece did also receive a text from the Greek authorities who warned them of not entering Greece (Stevis-Gridneff, 2020). xi The center-right wing party Neo Demokratia won the elections in July 2019, after that the left-wing party Syriza had been in government. Once Neo Demokratia was in power, violent border enforcement practices soared in the Aegean Sea. xii For example, at the beginning of 2020 the Greek government committed to the implementation of mobile deterrence barriers at sea. Then, after the four-month experiment with the floating tents, the plan was relaunched in summer 2020 (BBC, 2020). xiii These had been introduced with the EU-Turkey Deal, signed in March 2016. xiv Interview with a lawyer from the organisation HIAS, Lesvos, August 24, 2020. xv “The combination of medicine and hygiene, is in the nineteenth century, if not the most important element, an element of considerable importance because of the link it establishes between scientific knowledge of both biological and organic processes (or in other words, the population and the body), and because, at the same time, medicine becomes a political intervention-technique with specific power-effects” (Foucault, 1997: 252). 29