Back in 2015, as more than 1.3 million people rushed into Europe, mostly fleeing the brutal war in Syria, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded, “Wir schaffen das” (“We can manage this”), and opened the EU borders, The Guardian reports.
Less than a decade later, faced with a flow of irregular migrants that is less than 10 per cent of what it was at the peak of the migration crisis, EU capitals are increasingly saying, “No, we can’t.” Or, perhaps more accurately, “We won’t.”
Under intense political pressure from right-wing parties in power in half a dozen member states and advancing in almost every election in others, governments are outpacing each other in adopting tough anti-immigration measures.
Just this month, Germany reintroduced checks at all its land borders, France vowed to restore “order at our borders,” the Netherlands announced the “toughest ever” regime, and Sweden and Finland proposed tough anti-migrant laws.
Such sentiments have the potential to strain ties with the EU and could jeopardise not only the new asylum and immigration pact, recently concluded after nearly a decade of tense negotiations, but also the precious Schengen zone with free movement.
Marcus Engler, of the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research, said:
It’s hyperactive. It’s one restriction after another, with no impact assessments and no evidence they will actually work. They’re clearly driven by electoral logic.
The number of people who arrived in the EU as illegal immigrants between January and the end of July totalled 113,400, about 36 per cent fewer than last year.
Germany, long considered one of the bloc’s most open members, has recently tightened asylum and residency laws, cut social benefits for some refugees and resumed deporting Afghan nationals for the first time since the Taliban took power in 2021.
The fragile three-party coalition, led by the Socialists and trailing far behind the centre-right and opposition in the polls, insists the introduction of checks at land borders this month will curb migration and “protect against the serious danger posed by Islamist terrorism and serious criminality.”
The move was widely condemned as politically motivated after a series of knife attacks in which asylum seekers were suspects and historic electoral successes in Alternative for Germany (AfD) states.
At the European level, it was seen in many – though not all – capitals as a potentially far-reaching blow to the 27-nation, passport-free Schengen zone, considered one of the EU’s biggest and most important economic achievements. A diplomat from one EU member state said:
It’s a kind of a trap. Once you introduce this kind of measure with no real practical justification, how do you sell to voters the notion, just a few months later, that it’s now somehow safe to reverse it?
Support came from the Hungarian government, which this month threatened to send a convoy of busloads of migrants to Brussels to protest against EU migration policy. “Welcome to the club,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said.
The Netherlands’ new coalition, led by the anti-immigration Freedom Party (PVV), has done the same. This month it promised “the strictest EU admission rules,” saying the country “can no longer tolerate the influx of immigrants.”
The four-party government plans to freeze new asylum applications, provide only basic housing, restrict family reunification visas and speed up forced returns. It also intends to declare an “asylum crisis” to take action without parliamentary approval.
Once-hospitable Sweden, whose coalition is backed by the Sweden Democrats party, this month proposed increasing the amount it pays to people who want to return home from €880 (£665) to €30,000 each.
Stockholm also plans to pass a law requiring public sector workers to report undocumented people to the authorities, while Finland’s coalition of wants to ban undocumented people from accessing non-emergency medical care.
France’s new government, whose survival will depend on whether and when Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement Nationale (Rassemblement Nationale) decides to back any future vote of no confidence from the left, is also set for a much tougher approach.
Prime Minister Michel Barnier this week described the level of immigration as “often intolerable.” He said cancelling full health care for undocumented people who have been in France for at least three months, something the RN has long sought, “is not taboo.”
Barnier also praised “what the Socialist chancellor in Germany is doing” on border controls, calling it “a worrying signal for us.” His hard-line interior minister Bruno Retailleau said France should see “how far we can go” to introduce permanent checks. Retailleau said in his first television interview, adding that Paris aimed to review EU legislation that is no longer suitable:
The French people want more order: order in the streets, order at the borders.
The contagious new mood, evident across the bloc, does not bode well for the future of the Schengen zone and could jeopardise the EU’s new asylum and migration pact, concluded this spring after nearly a decade of negotiations.
The pact, criticised by human rights groups who say it will increase suffering and reduce protection, aims to strengthen external borders while sharing the financial and practical burdens of resettlement.
The Netherlands and Hungary have already said they want to opt out of the pact. Retailleau’s comments suggest that France too may now change its mind. Engler said:
Already, national governments are saying it’s not enough. They want new rules to give them even more control … Even Germany’s policymakers seem to have concluded it won’t really work.
Perhaps most striking is the concerted move to promote offshore processing, similar to the agreements signed by Denmark with Kosovo and Italy with Albania (in Rome’s case, along with agreements with the leaders of Libya and Tunisia to reduce exit).
Fifteen EU member states, led by Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Italy, have reportedly written to the European Commission urging it to “identify, develop and propose new ways and solutions to prevent irregular migration to Europe.”
The transfer of reception and asylum functions to countries outside the EU is one of the main objectives of the 15, along with a “common approach to return,” particularly to safe third countries or countries of origin, including Syria and Afghanistan.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has promised such an approach. Gradually, an EU diplomat says, “the mood is changing. The language, the policies are getting tougher. We are discussing things that nobody would have dared to say ten years ago.”
According to Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at the College of Europe, there is a clear pattern. He said:
A French rightwing government calling to make temporary border controls permanent. A German centre-left government de facto suspending Schengen. Migration deals à la Italy-Albania becoming the new modus operandi. And the migration pact ready to be renegotiated, as if it wasn’t strict enough … Who will counter this?
Europe clearly faces very real migration problems, Engler concluded. He also added:
But these are not solutions. Perhaps the influence of far-right parties has reached a critical point – the mainstream parties have no plan, but they’re freaking out. It took several generations of politicians to build the EU as a space of free movement and human rights. It seems the current generation of political leaders is intent on tearing it all down in the space of a few years.
