ANGELIKI DIMITRIADI of Migration. The argument is that many migrants would abscond (and thus Greece would not be able to implement returns) but also that it would be a «pull factor» for others to undertake the journey. Thus, immobility is a necessity for the success of the Statement: it acts as a deterrent to those who would otherwise consider undertaking the journey. Migrants have reacted to the conditions imposed on them by seeking to either effect or delay change. From riots to asylum applications, migrant practices reflect both the need to protect their interests but also to seek change in the politics and policies in place. Sandro Mezzadra has coined the notion of «right to escape» as the «individual motion […] of desertion from the field» (2004, p. 270). Without it, there can be no mobility. It is perhaps even more pertinent in the case of the island-hotspots, since the various acts discussed in the paper reveal a desire and a claim of the «right» to escape, to asylum, to equal treatment, to better conditions. The EU-Turkey Statement instead has transformed the islands into vast hotspots where migrants wait in limbo. The islands are not exempt from or above the law. Rather, the legal framework of Greece has been adjusted accordingly. Law 4375/2016 established the criteria under which the hotspots operate, impose immobility and process (in)admissibility. This has given rise to a unique landscape where the EU’s external borders multiply internally, where transit is achieved without affecting the mainland, and where detention is used in conjunction with returns as a tool of punishment as well as a deterrent. The Aegean Sea is transforming once again into a space that reveals emergent power relations between the State and migrants and involves multiple actors across different spatial settings. As such, the EU’s external borders are once again a testing ground of how the EU sees migration and what it envisages for the future. References Agamben, G. 1998 Homo sacer. Sovereign power and the bare life. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Anderson, J. 1996 «The shifting stage of politics: new medieval and postmodern territorialities?», in Society and Space, 14, 2, pp. 133-153. Angeli, D., A. Dimitriadi, A. Triandafyllidou 2014 MIDAS Policy Paper: Assessing the Cost-Effectiveness of Irregular Migration Control Policies in Greece, Athens, ELIAMEP. Bialasiewicz, L. 2012 «Off-shoring and out-sourcing the borders of Europe: Libya and EU border-work in the Mediterranean», in Geopolitics 17, 4, pp. 843-866. – 92 –