Despite declining immigration figures, consistent signs of successful “integration”, and an economic demand for labour migrants, migration continues to monopolise the Dutch political debate. Where does this obsession come from? And what would it take to finally overcome it?

In 2023, Dutch migration scholar Hein de Haas published How migration really works, which debunks common myths about the subject. The book quickly became a bestseller, but its success did not seem to have any effect on Dutch politics.

In July that year, the coalition government led by Mark Rutte collapsed because of disagreements over asylum policies. Two years later, his successor, Dick Schoof, saw his coalition fall too, after the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) withdrew from the government. The reason? The coalition partners had failed to back the PVV’s policies aimed at cracking down on asylum. This was despite the fact that the Netherlands’ migration discourse has significantly shifted to the right in recent years.

Migration facts and figures show that there is little new or unusual going on to justify this attention. The Netherlands has been a country of immigration and emigration throughout its history. The arrival of asylum seekers is not a recent phenomenon, and dealing with diversity, including religious diversity, is an essential part of Dutch national identity. Moreover, the Dutch economy needs migration, and the integration process, as official reports show year after year, is progressing smoothly. And compared to other European countries, the Netherlands is average rather than a frontrunner when it comes to immigration or to asylum migration in particular. The percentage of first asylum applications in the Netherlands was about 0.18 per cent of the total population in 2024, compared to 0.66 per cent in Greece, and about 0.28 per cent in Germany and Belgium.

What is the obsession with migration really about, then? And where does it come from? 

The Dutch migration debate is about so much more than just migration. It reveals how society, politics, the media, and the scientific community are grappling with the rapid changes and increasing societal complexity associated with globalisation. In 2024, Prime Minister Schoof argued that there was a need for tougher migration policies because “Dutch people experience a crisis.” The perception of crisis – and the persistent use of crisis language – demonstrates that something is indeed wrong in society. This also manifests itself in “moral panic”, where migration is seen as the cause of a decline in norms and values, Dutch identity, and much more. This panic feeds narratives blaming migration for virtually every problem society experiences: asylum seekers cause the housing crisis, international students undermine the education system, and migrants are primarily responsible for security issues

Rather than being dismissed as simply irrational, this sensation of crisis should be the starting point for understanding the Dutch migration obsession.

Rather than being dismissed as simply irrational, the sensation of crisis should be the starting point for understanding the Dutch migration obsession.

A shift in political culture

Migration is often a polarising issue, and the Netherlands is no exception in this regard. In the Dutch case, however, migration is the core issue of contestation around which national political culture has changed radically. From a consensus-driven culture of pacification – the “consociationalism” theorised by Dutch political scientist Arend Lijphart – the country shifted to a culture of confrontation and “hyper-realism”, where the ability to identify and “label” problems is considered essential.

Migration was already on the political agenda long before this shift took place. But there was broad consensus on the policies to adopt, and a clear understanding that knowledge and expertise should play a central role in designing them.

This started to change with the rise of academic and businessman Pim Fortuyn in Dutch politics between 2000 and 2002. By connecting uncertainty and discontent in society with migration, multiculturalism, and Islam, Fortuyn triggered a new political logic that has only intensified since then. Although he was assassinated in 2002 and his party imploded soon after, the kind of populism Fortuyn introduced to Dutch politics was there to stay, as demonstrated by Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (founded in 2006) and Thierry Baudet’s even more extreme Forum for Democracy (established in 2015).

Unlike in other European countries, centrist political forces never implemented a cordon sanitaire against the far right: the Pim Fortuyn List was part of a coalition government between 2002 and 2003, and the Party for Freedom provided external support to a minority government between 2010 and 2012. After a decade in opposition, Wilders’ party became the largest force in parliament and the main player in the Schoof government.

While these parties played a major role in shifting the discourse around migration, their power should not be overestimated. Their strength is, at least in part, due to the weakness of mainstream parties. None of the established political forces had a clear narrative on migration, allowing insecurities about social change to be diverted onto multiculturalism. The social-democratic and green party GroenLinks/PvdA was caught in a “progressive dilemma” between solidarity with migrants and the protection of the Dutch working classes and the welfare state; the liberal VVD was split between (primarily economically driven) liberals and (more culturally driven) conservatives; and the Christian-democratic CDA couldn’t reconcile its championing of religious diversity in general with concerns for the rise of Islam.

These ambivalent attitudes left room for right-wing populist parties to shape public narratives on migration. Even now, parties of the political centre haven’t figured out how and to what extent they should speak up against the highly provocative statements of Wilders and his party. However, the last decades have shown that not countering populist voices doesn’t help to overcome the migration obsession. On the contrary, it has enabled populist parties to focus the political attention entirely on migration and shape the Dutch public mood accordingly.

Migranticising problems

The migration obsession isn’t a product of party politics alone. Migration has become the catalyst of a broader discontent with globalisation.

The Dutch economy is very globally oriented. Its companies attract labour migrants, including “knowledge migrants”, but they also affect the countries of origin of many migrants through their impact on global inequalities, climate change, culture, and politics. Economic globalisation is therefore a major driver of social change. However, when discussing issues connected to housing, education, climate, and culture, migration is often framed as a cause rather than a consequence.

Migration has become the catalyst of a broader discontent with globalisation.

The housing crisis is a prime example of this “migranticisation”. The Netherlands has a vast housing shortage of approximately 400,000 homes, of which only a small fraction (about 50,000) would be needed for settling refugees. Yet the public debate consistently blames this shortage on asylum seekers rather than on the country’s neoliberal housing policies.

Similarly, knowledge workers and other labour migrants are held responsible for “stealing” jobs, while a broader debate is missing on how and why the Dutch economy has a structural demand for labour migration. The Dutch desire to have a strong, globally competitive economy is not accompanied by an honest conversation on the amount of migration that this economy needs. In this sense, the migration obsession is a form of “redirected behaviour” – the venting of frustration about one problem on another.

The role of statistics

This dynamic is also fuelled by how being a “migrant” (even a “second-generation migrant”, who has never migrated) or going through a process of “integration” tends to be objectified by government-compiled statistics. Few countries collect as extensive ethnic data and migration statistics as the Netherlands. For each migrant group, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) collect information on everything from influx to labour force participation and crime rate.

This information, like any type of data, contributes to identifying differences, whether negative or positive. The availability of this data enables a media logic that tends to focus on bad rather than good news. For example, crime rates will find more space in media discourse than labour market participation and contribution to the economy.

Furthermore, the media’s use of this data tends to ignore that socio-economic variables matter much more to successful “integration” than ethnic background and nationality. For example, the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy showed that the crime rate among asylum seekers was actually lower than the national average when their demographic profile (age, gender) and socio-economic profile (education, language, income) were taken into account.

Yet the Netherlands has a long political and media tradition of shaping policies and public discourses on nationality and ethnicity data. While this approach can be driven by a desire for informed and evidence-based debate, it has contributed to fuelling the migration obsession.

The media effect

Aside from its use of ethnicity statistics, the media feeds the obsession in ways that are not unique to the Dutch context. Like other countries, the Netherlands has experienced over the past decades a diversification and commercialisation of its media landscape, with different channels having to fiercely compete for attention. The rise of social media has also played into the politics of attention and created echo-chambers, undermining the “control function” of media in a democratic context. As a result, the (online) media have replaced parliament as the main arena of political debate. Geert Wilders’ savvy use of X is just one example of this.

Migration perfectly suits the dynamics of the attention economy. To elicit emotions and reactions, media coverage on migration employs a combination of dramatic crisis language, exciting stories about what is wrong with current policy and what could still go wrong, stories about authorities’ failures to control flows, and reports on incidents that are blown out of proportion or “migranticised”. Social media then adds a tunnel or echo effect, whereby people’s suspicions and feelings are repeatedly reinforced.

The migration obsession thrives on the interplay between media and politics. Politics seeks to “name” a sense of crisis surrounding migration, the media shapes this feeling, and social discontent grows as a result. Readers of leading conservative newspapers like De Telegraaf and those who spend a lot of time on social media are constantly bombarded with highly “migranticised” news coverage, actively amplified by politicians. In this context, it is hardly surprising that citizens become concerned with migration.

Finally, the migration debate in the Netherlands is largely about migrants rather than with them. The lack of a counterpoint distinguishes the discussion on migration from that on other policy areas, such as farming and agriculture, where opposing perspectives are regularly granted space and attention. This means that the migration obsession can go unchecked; it can roam freely.

The poison and the cure

The migration obsession has very real effects on Dutch society. It contributes significantly to the alienation of a growing part of the population – especially people with a migration background. A 2024 study from the Social and Cultural Planning Office found signs of growing apathy amongst part of the population, triggered by the exclusionist tendencies of the debate on migration.

But there are broader consequences too. The obsession undermines the quality of policy and policymaking in the area of migration and diversity. The constant pressure, politicisation, and migranticisation create an imbalance between inflating problems on the one hand and the inability to come up with workable solutions on the other. This is manifest in the area of asylum in particular, where chaos is not a product of unmanageable migration flow but rather of bad policies, underresourcing, and suspicion towards implementing agencies. There is no asylum crisis but an asylum chaos: solving it demands better, not stricter policy.

There is no asylum crisis but an asylum chaos: solving it demands better, not stricter policy.

Inflating migration issues as a strategy of distraction also harms trust in government and democratic institutions. Today, only four per cent of Dutch citizens declare that they trust the government. The politics of fear around migration, as well as unmet expectations that the government would be able to “fix” migration and integration, has contributed to declining trust levels. In this sense, the migration obsession is a key element of a vicious circle that undermines democracy.

Overcoming the migration obsession demands more than just hope that populist and radical-right parties are voted out of power. It requires that all political parties tell a clear and honest story about migration, and why the Netherlands needs so much of it. Rather than obsessing over migration as a symptom, this story should focus on its structural roots, and open a debate on the model and direction of the Dutch economy.

Greater sensitivity and reflexivity on the part of the media are also needed to deconstruct how “migration language” is used and broader problems are “migranticised”. This does not mean there should be no debate on migration, but rather proves that we need a discourse of better quality, with much greater precision and honesty. The general public also has a responsibility to demand and foster a healthier discussion. Blaming it all on the populists is way too easy.

The meandering ribbon of the Bug River passes through Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus, following stretches of one of the most controlled borders of Europe. The river, known for its unique ecosystem, is the site of growing political tension and a worsening humanitarian crisis. Once a symbol of coexistence between nature and human civilisation, the Bug is now a political battlefield, flanked by heavy barriers and fallen trees.

The Bug River forms a natural border between Poland and parts of northwestern Ukraine and southern Belarus. It is a lifeline for ecosystems, but is now caught in the crossfire of politics and security. In a bid to strengthen its eastern frontier, in September 2024, Poland started work on a 172 km-long electronic surveillance barrier near the border with Belarus that follows the course of the river. While the barrier is framed as a matter of national security, its construction has led to large-scale deforestation. Surveillance poles equipped with motion sensors and cameras now dot the landscape. Once a seamless ecological corridor, the banks of the Bug River now mark a dividing line. 

The 2021 migration crisis deepened the rift between Belarus and Poland, effectively ending their joint environmental efforts. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Belarus’s role as a co-aggressor, any remaining cooperation on ecological protection along the Bug River has ground to a halt. 

The result? A stark rise in deforestation, pollution, and disruption of animal migration routes. The increasing militarisation of the border leaves scars on the landscape that may be difficult – or even impossible – to heal. Without renewed dialogue and cross-border conservation initiatives, the Bug’s fragile biodiversity could soon be irreparably damaged. 

A lifeline of Eastern Europe 

Stretching almost 800 kilometres across Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland, the Bug River is one of Eastern Europe’s most significant transboundary waterways. It originates in western Ukraine, near the village of Verkhobuzh in the Podolian Upland, and winds through the lowlands of Brest and the Pribugh Plain. In Poland, it joins the Narew River and eventually feeds into the Vistula, whose waters reach the Baltic Sea. 

The river’s course is geopolitically meaningful: nearly half its length runs through Poland, while about 20 per cent flows through Belarus. Ukraine accounts for over a quarter of the river’s drainage basin. But beyond geography, the Bug holds a more profound historical significance – it has served as a political boundary for more than half a century. 

After World War II, the Bug River became part of Poland’s eastern border, separating it from the Ukrainian and Belarusian Soviet republics. Today, it marks not only national borders but also the frontiers of the European Union and the Schengen Area. 

When the Belarusian government began weaponising migration in response to EU sanctions, Poland declared a state of emergency in its border regions. 

Ecologically, the Bug is one of Europe’s last remaining wild rivers – a rare, unregulated waterway that still flows in a largely natural state. It forms a vital ecological corridor, supporting a rich mosaic of habitats for fish, birds, amphibians, and aquatic plants. Its largely untouched banks provide critical resources for local communities and serve as natural filters, purifying water and maintaining regional biodiversity. The Bug River Valley encompasses several protected areas, including Natura 2000 sites, highlighting its natural importance. 

However, the lack of cross-border cooperation on environmental protection between Poland and Belarus and increasing border militarisation has led to logging, pollution, and the disruption of animal migration patterns. 

Threats of border militarisation 

Over the years, activity along the border has left a mark on the local ecosystem. While the level of patrol and surveillance has fluctuated with the political climate, at times easing to allow for cross-border cooperation, including on ecological initiatives, the past four years have seen a steady worsening in conditions. The rate of environmental damage has escalated since 2021, while the humanitarian crisis has deepened.  

When the Belarusian government began weaponising migration in response to EU sanctions, directing people from countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa towards the EU with false promises of easy access, Poland declared a state of emergency in its border regions. 

That same year, a barbed wire barrier was installed along the border, including across the riverbanks. The impact was immediate and devastating: many animals became fatally entangled in the concertina wire while migrating or seeking water. The injuries were often gruesome; deep lacerations caused immense suffering. Although the wire began to be dismantled in late 2024, its environmental cost remains, with leftover fragments continuing to harm wildlife. 

Now, a new phase of border surveillance infrastructure building is underway. Plans include the installation of approximately 1,800 camera poles, 4,500 day-night and thermal cameras, and various sensors to detect physical movement. The project also involves laying 200 kilometres of power and data transmission cables and constructing the foundations for around ten telecommunication containers. Thousands of trees have been felled along a 15-meter-wide strip on the Polish side of the river, including in the ecologically valuable Podlasie Switzerland reserve, to make space. 

Poland’s border protection laws exempt such projects from environmental assessments. Although contractors are meant to consult Regional Environmental Protection Directorates, deforestation has already extended into sensitive natural areas, destroying habitats vital to many bird species. 

Professor Maciej Karpowicz, a hydrobiologist at the University of Białystok, emphasises that large-scale logging along the river can increase the risk of hydrological droughts, cause bank erosion, and destabilise the riverbed. Without trees to act as natural barriers, pollution levels in the Bug’s waters might rise, degrading water quality. Poland has among the fewest renewable freshwater resources in Europe. Water scarcity is a growing problem this year: the beginning of 2025 was exceptionally dry, with minimal snowfall in the mountains and critically low river levels. As of April, the outlook remains bleak: Poland’s National Geological Institute highlights low water conditions across 12 of the 16 voivodeships. 

Maciej Cmoch, ornithologist and author of a book on the Bug, notes that riparian forests are being lost due to logging next to the river. “Fortunately, the cut strip is relatively narrow but includes trees and shrubs growing beside the river,” Cmoch warns. “These are valuable habitats for many birds that now face loss of breeding, resting and lurking sites.”  

The situation causes suffering for other species. Izabela Kadłucka, biologist and president of the coalition of foundations Niech Żyją! (“Let Them Live!”), stresses the river’s role as an ecological corridor. “The Bug River allows species to migrate. With such extensive changes, migration will be seriously disrupted, first during construction and later as organisms struggle to adapt,” she says. “The river is also a crucial watering place and a shelter in extreme weather. Now, it is losing these functions. Aquatic organisms will suffer from rising water temperatures and the loss of shade.” 

Poland: stopping migration at all costs 

Despite the environmental and financial costs involved in securitising the border, the number of people attempting to cross the Bug is not high. According to an investigation published by Oko.Press in December 2024, the Polish Border Guard prevented 395 people from illegally crossing the Polish-Belarusian border along its river section last year – a relatively small number in the broader context of migration. As stated by the Podlaskie Voivodeship Branch of the Border Guard, in 2024, officers recorded nearly 30,000 attempts to cross the border between the two countries illegally. 

The Polish government’s priorities became clear in March 2025 when the parliament approved plans to temporarily suspend asylum applications in case of direct security threats. Humanitarian organisations have condemned the move. Grupa Granica, a solidarity network of humanitarian aid groups on the Polish-Belarusian border, states: “The statistics show that the Polish-Belarusian border is mainly crossed by people from countries gripped by conflicts and crises. Poland will cease to be the first safe country in the EU for them. Those seeking refuge in Europe, deprived of the opportunity to apply for international protection in Poland, will be pushed into the grey zone. Smugglers and human traffickers will benefit.” 

Despite the environmental and financial costs involved in securitising the border, the number of people attempting to cross the Bug is not high.

Polish and international NGOs insist that the right to seek asylum is a fundamental human right that must not be revoked, regardless of geopolitical pressures. While the European Union has urged Poland to respect human rights and ensure access to humanitarian organisations, the political rhetoric across Europe continues to harden. 

It was apparent in the lead-up to Germany’s federal election this February, and in the ongoing presidential campaign in Poland. Border protection and migration control have become dominant campaign themes. “Security” is the promise repeated most. Yet the human and environmental costs of these policies remain largely ignored. 

Belarus’ environmental information blackout 

While Poland prioritises border security over ecological concerns, Belarus has imposed strict information controls on environmental issues. After the 2020 protests related to the non-recognition of the presidential election results, authorities closed all NGOs, and many environmental activists were put behind bars. Around the same time, Belarus withdrew from the Aarhus Convention, which grants the public rights regarding access to information, participation, and justice in environmental matters. 

The available information on the pollution of the Bug River does not give a full picture of the scale of the environmental problem. The website of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Belarus (Minprirody) publishes quarterly data on surface water monitoring. However, this information is presented in an inconvenient text format, which makes it difficult to identify clear trends and patterns. 

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, Belarus, Poland and Ukraine cooperated on transboundary environmental protection. Experts exchanged water quality data, conducted joint monitoring, and shared expertise. Interaction took place not only between official state institutions, but also between NGOs and environmental activists. One such example is the Bug Unites Us project: the organisers proposed to create canoeing routes on the Bug River through Ukraine, Belarus and Poland. The project received financial support from the EU: 1.4 million euros were allocated for its implementation in 2014-2020 within the framework of the cross-border cooperation programme “Poland-Belarus-Ukraine”.  

Two places were identified between Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine where, during the tourist season, it would be possible to pass border controls and cross the river border on kayaks. However, due to the tense geopolitical situation, the international routes never got off the ground. Rafting is now only done within each country. 

Environmental activists from Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine have also joined forces to oppose the E40 waterway project: a more than 2000-kilometre shipping route along the Vistula, Pripyat and Dnieper rivers to connect the Baltic and Black Seas. They have repeatedly held protests against the plan’s implementation, with the activity peaking in 2018. Officials (both Polish, Ukrainian and Belarusian) were actively working on the E40’s development from 2016 to 2019. Activists argued however that it would have destroyed the unique nature of the Polesie region. A report by Save Polesia – a coalition of civil society organisations from Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Germany – reveals that the planned waterway would threaten nearly 200 internationally protected areas across the three countries, including several Natura 2000 sites. 

The suppression of environmental information in Belarus is directly linked to the government’s fear of protests.

As relations worsened between the three countries, the E40 project was eventually frozen, making it a rare example of how political tensions can serve to prevent further damage to ecological features.  

In any case, the involvement of activists from Belarus ceased after the government’s crackdown on NGOs following the 2020 protests. Reports are still being issued, but only by groups in Poland and Ukraine, which signed an agreement on border water management as early as 1996. The Polish-Ukrainian Boundary Waters Commission conducts monthly surveys on the Polish and Ukrainian sides. In recent years, the two countries have used different methodologies, which has made creating joint reports difficult. However, there is the prospect of facilitating better cooperation – Ukraine is now introducing water monitoring in accordance with the requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive. Additionally, in March 2025, the EU and Ukraine launched the EU4Green Recovery East programme, which, among other goals, supports the reduction of water pollution and better cross-border cooperation. 

The suppression of environmental information in Belarus is directly linked to the government’s fear of protests. In 2017, citizens opposed the construction of a battery factory near the Bug River, fearing high lead emissions. Despite protests, the plant began operations in 2020. Given past environmental scandals – including 8,000 tonnes of lead waste illegally dumped in the Zeleny Bor village – locals have little trust in government assurances about safety. 

Belarusian legislation theoretically protects the environment, but enforcement is weak. The available data on water pollution suggest serious contamination from nitrogen, phosphates, and heavy metals. However, authorities provide no details on pollution sources or specific locations, making independent analysis impossible. 

Another looming crisis is the state of Belarus’ wastewater treatment facilities. Many cities in the Bug basin still rely on Soviet-era equipment from the 1980s. These outdated systems no longer effectively filter pollutants. Prior to 2020, EU funding helped modernise wastewater treatment in some cities, such as Brest. But since sanctions halted cooperation, other cities, such as Kobrin, have been left with crumbling infrastructure. If wastewater treatment facilities fail, raw sewage could spill into the Bug, contaminating the Vistula, which is a tributary of the Baltic Sea. 

Can politics and nature coexist? 

While Belarus restricts environmental transparency and Poland prioritises border security, the Bug River silently bears the consequences. History has shown that political tensions push ecological concerns into the background, where they remain until the damage is beyond repair. The failure to cooperate on environmental protection and the militarisation of the border are leaving scars that will last for generations. Deforestation, pollution and habitat destruction are not temporary side effects but permanent losses that will shape the future of this region. As climate change accelerates and biodiversity dwindles, true security is not just about fortified borders, but also about safeguarding ecosystems. 

Elsewhere in the world, rivers like the Canadian Magpie and New Zealand’s Whanganui have been granted legal personhood, allowing them to fight for their right to exist and thrive. The Bug River, despite its ecological significance, has no such protection. It cannot speak for itself, especially when confronted with arguments of national security and political necessity. 

But as the political landscape surrounding the Bug River becomes increasingly fraught, the health of the Bug River is not just a matter of national interest – it is a shared responsibility that transcends borders and divisions. 

This article was produced with the support of Journalismfund Europe. 

Since coming to power in 2019, Kais Saied has tightened his grip on Tunisia’s institutions and rolled back democratic reforms linked to the Arab Spring. His popularity feeds on resentment against sub-Saharan migrants, elites, and foreign interference. The EU, eager to curb migration and develop green energy, is turning a blind eye to his abuses.  

Tunisia is a “privileged partner” of the European Union, which has supported efforts to transform the country’s political system and stabilise its economy since the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011. Just over a year ago, the two concluded an Association Agreement and a Memorandum of Understanding to, among other things, ensure the stability of the Tunisian economy, facilitate Tunisia’s energy transition, and manage migration flows. 

However, the North African country continues to grapple with severe economic and social problems. Despite the economy doing better this year than in 2023 – partly thanks to the rebound in tourism – unemployment currently stands at 16 per cent, with a disproportionate effect on women and young people, public debt is growing, and inflation is above 9 per cent. Purchasing power has declined because salaries have remained stagnant while prices have soared: the minimum wage is around 110 euros. 

These problems are amplified by a complex political situation. President Kais Saied was reelected on 6 October following a highly controversial presidential election in which voter turnout was just 28 per cent (with only 6 per cent of young people voting). The newly re-elected president has been pursuing populist and nationalistic policies, issuing decrees with little or no involvement from advisors. This hasn’t helped his image on the international stage.  

“He is anti-politics,” said Sami Ben Abderrahmane, a retired judge. “The people believe in him as if he were a prophet. You cannot change the electoral law a year before the elections; you cannot change the rules of the game. Economically, there will be no major reforms coming.”   

During his five-year tenure, Saied appointed five different prime ministers, suspended the Parliament in July 2021 after a political stalemate and economic crisis lasting several years, and finally dissolved it in March 2022. The new constitution he introduced grants the president significantly expanded powers while simultaneously weakening the influence of Tunisia’s legislative (parliamentary) and judiciary branches. In addition, three months before the elections were to take place, Saied made changes to the electoral law in order to reduce the role played by political parties. 

The members of the Independent High Authority for Elections of Tunisia (ISIE), the institution in charge of organising elections since 2011, have been appointed directly by Saied since 2022. This has resulted in ISIE only approving three candidates to run in the presidential elections – one of which was Saied. Several candidates have challenged the decision before administrative courts. Three of them, Imed Daimi, Mondher Znaidi, and Abdellatif Mekki, won their appeals, and the court decided to reinstate them as candidates.  

However, on 1 September, ISIE rejected the binding court ruling and refused to implement it. Thus, the only candidates in the running on election day were Saied, Ayachi Zammel – who was sentenced to 12 years in prison a few weeks prior to the elections after being found guilty on several charges – and Zouhair Maghzaoui, who only received 1.97 per cent of the vote. 

These actions clearly violate the separation of powers enshrined in the democratic constitution of 2014. Indeed, critics see these measures as threatening the democratic gains made since the Tunisian revolution and the overthrow of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s regime in 2011, accusing Saied of an “authoritarian drift”, a “constitutional coup”, a “self-coup” or a “military-backed coup”.  

“We are returning to the dictatorial regime of the Ben Ali period, but in a much more difficult world and with a dictator who, unlike his predecessor, plays, at least rhetorically, with nationalistic, populist, and anti-colonialist ideas,” says the Spanish philosopher and writer Santiago Alba. “He is a kind of sad Gaddafi.”   

The demolition of democracy 

Unlike its neighbouring Arab countries, which also experienced massive popular uprisings in 2011, Tunisia did not immediately revert to authoritarianism or descend into civil war.  

“The impression that things were better before (under Ben Ali) goes beyond culture,” says Tunisian writer Hatem Nafti. “There was a kind of tacit agreement: secure a minimum living standard for a large part of the population in exchange for freedom. Today, the economic situation has deteriorated significantly and the number of people who are able to enjoy freedom is decreasing.”  

Many foreign observers and some of Tunisia’s political elites have celebrated the country as the Arab world’s only democracy. President Saied’s expansion of presidential powers has shaken the political system, calling into question the future of Tunisian democracy but also highlighting deep-rooted cracks in the country’s democratic framework. 

“The problem is that we knew from the get-go that he doesn’t believe in debate,” says Mustapha Tlili, a professor of modern history and civil society activist, who is a former leader of the Tunisian Human Rights League. “He doesn’t believe in experts. He doesn’t believe in elites – quite the contrary. He continues to demonise everyone, the power elites, experts, political parties, organisations, human rights associations, etcetera. He wants to demonise everyone.”

Nevertheless, after years of irritation with the country’s political elites, many Tunisians welcomed the president’s decisions. They see them as part of the fight against corruption and foreign interference. This popular support could be seen at the polls, where most of the people willing to speak to the press praised Saied for jailing members of the opposition, whom they described as “terrorists”, “corrupt”, or “doing deals with other countries”. It’s a populist discourse focused on eradicating corruption, backroom deals, and political conspiracies. 

Saied sells slogans such as “I am with the poor”, “I like the poor”, and “The rich are corrupting our neighbourhoods.” “He has created a dichotomy in which there is only good and evil; he represents good, and the others are all evil,” Tlili laments. “Those who are not with him are conspiring with foreigners and don’t want to defend the nation. He is under the impression that he is leading a war of national liberation, and he reiterates that belief whenever he appears on television or on the radio.”  

Dissenting voices in the country are being repressed, with journalists, lawyers, politicians, activists, dissidents, and human rights defenders thrown in prison. To this end, over the past two years Saied has used a controversial law that criminalises the dissemination of “false information”. Amnesty International has described Decree 54, which severely limits freedom of expression, as one of the harshest measures passed in Tunisia in over a decade. 

A young Tunisian artist, who prefers to remain anonymous for fear of being arrested (a member of his family has been in prison for several months due to his social media posts), is convinced that “this regime cannot last.” He appeared downhearted during his interview with the Green European Journal, which took place the day after the elections. “The president wants people to believe that the West, colonisation, and the European Union are to blame for everything.” 

It is true that, despite criticism, discontent, and several demonstrations during three years of repression, attempts to unseat Saied have been unsuccessful. “Fear is not the only reason, but it helps reduce opposition and even people’s degree of politicisation,” Nafti said. “One chapter of my book is entitled ‘The Twilight of Politics’. The splintering of the opposition and the fact that the regime has created its own laws, systematically disregarding checks and balances, also play a role.” 

Nafti, author of Our Friend Kais Saied (Riveneuve, 2024) and a member of the Tunisian Observatory of Populism, resides in Paris and has not travelled to Tunisia since February 2023. “Several lawyers have advised me not to return to Tunisia because I risk being imprisoned. There are people in prison on charges that are much vaguer than the ones brought against me. I received serious death threats and discovered that I was being followed outside my home in Paris.”   

When asked about Saied’s personality, he replied: “It took me more than two books to describe him. If I had to sum him up in one sentence, I would say that he is someone who is out to get revenge on the elites who never took him seriously – especially because he never received a doctorate – and who believes himself to be tasked with an almost messianic mission. Opposing him is blasphemy.” 

Tunisia on the international stage 

This situation has implications for the broader international community and for Tunisia’s relationship with Europe. Until the constitutional change in 2022, Tunisia’s main benefactors were the US, as well as the EU and its member states, which provided the country with more than 1.3 billion dollars in economic assistance each year. The US has withdrawn its aid and reprimanded Saied for his actions. Europe, for its part, has focused more on Tunisia’s ability to curb the flow of migrants than on advancing democracy in the country. Thus, at the same time as the EU was withdrawing its financial aid, it was sending funds to strengthen the border police. 

Currently, Tunisia’s main allies are Algeria and Libya, especially in terms of energy supply. For financial resources, it looks to Saudi Arabia, as well as some European countries, such as Italy, with whom it has also signed a deal to fight illegal migration. Kuwait also reaffirmed its “support for the decisions of President Kais Saied and its confidence in his ability to overcome the challenges that the country is facing and achieve the aspirations of the Tunisian people.” 

Migration pact with Europe 

The plight of migrants in Tunisia took a tragic turn in 2023. Under pressure from the Italian government of Georgia Meloni, the EU signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Tunisia in July 2023 aimed at “addressing the migration crisis in an integrated manner.” In a presidential statement made in February of that same year, Saied claimed that “the undeclared goal of sub-Saharan Africans is to change the demographic composition of Tunisia.”  

The speech, and in particular, the president’s racist comments and his espousal of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory – which followed months of racist social media campaigns by the regime – had immediate repercussions. Citizen mobs assaulted and robbed sub-Saharan Africans while the police carried out raids and arrests. This climate of terror led to an influx of migrants to Sfax, a coastal city in southern Tunisia and the departure point for the Italian island of Lampedusa. 

Several makeshift camps have now been set up in olive groves a few kilometres from Sfax, where sub-Saharan migrants are enduring unsanitary conditions, biding their time until they can try their luck and embark on the dangerous journey to Italy. They are often detained by the coast guard, who seize all their belongings and imprison them or take them to the Algerian or Libyan desert, where they are left without food or water and where many of them perish. The suffering extends to the local population of Jbeniana and El Amra, who live under constant threat of violence and conflict, both from the police and from the migrants themselves. The prevailing insecurity has led to widespread protests from locals, who are frustrated with the mishandling of migration in the region. 

Tunisia’s treatment of migrants is in breach of the Memorandum of Understanding with Europe, which states that the migration approach “shall be based on respect for human rights”. For this reason, Amnesty International said in a letter to the European Council: “To remain true to their human rights commitments, the EU and its Member States should reconsider their approach to cooperation with Tunisia, and take steps to address the systematic attacks on the rule of law and separation of powers in the country, the crackdown on rights and freedoms, and the violence targeting Black African asylum seekers, refugees, and other migrants in the country.” 

In a context of growing xenophobia, Tunisia effectively acts as a border agent for the EU, with Europe providing the country with financial support so that it may secure the equipment, training, and technical support necessary for migration control. This role is a key pillar of the Memorandum, with an initial 105 million euros allocated for search and rescue vessels, jeeps, radars, drones and other types of patrol equipment. 

The implementation of these controls has led to a significant reduction in migrant arrivals to Europe, down by more than 80 per cent compared to 2023. According to Romdhane Ben Amor, spokesperson for FTDES, it comes as “the Tunisian authorities have mobilised a large number of human resources, both on land and at sea, to minimise the number of Tunisians migrating to European territories. Europeans are very satisfied, that is to say, they evaluate or measure success quantitatively by the number of migrants arriving in Europe.” 

Additionally, the President has agreed to allow the return and readmission of Tunisian nationals with irregular status from the European Union, and to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of irregular migrants in Tunisia to their home countries, with assistance from the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR. Some of these migrants are Tunisian citizens fleeing the country’s repressive policies, but others come from faraway places such as Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.  

“The Tunisian authorities do not provide figures on deportations, but these happen at Tabarka airport, a region bordering Algeria,” Ben Amor explains. “It’s a calm place; there is no activity, there are no planes except for the planes carrying the deportees. Which means there are no witnesses to the deportations. 

“Therefore, Europe has essentially green-lit violations against migrants in Tunisia. The European Union turns a blind eye to what is happening in Tunisia, with cautious statements that fail to criticise the abuse of human rights. They fall short of addressing the situation in Tunisia, so the European Union is legitimising what is happening there. The UN rapporteurs, for example, are more direct and have clearer messages.”  

Green strategy 

Another key area of European interest in Tunisia is its potential for green energy development. Aware of Tunisia’s renewable energy potential, the European Union has signed the Green Energy Transition Memorandum, which outlines a strategy to enhance sustainable growth and job creation in the area. This partnership will help strengthen the security of energy supply and provide citizens and businesses with low-carbon energy at competitive prices. 

In addition, within the framework of the Connecting Europe Facility, the EU has committed 307.6 million euros for the development of ELMED, a power line allowing Tunisia and Italy to trade low-cost renewable electricity, and up to 150 million euros for the construction of Medusa, a submarine cable that will use fibre optic technology to connect 11 countries around the Mediterranean. These projects will combine grants from the EU budget and loans from the European Investment Bank (EIB). This partnership will also address the instruments and regulations needed to enable Tunisia to export renewable energy and other products to the EU in view of the introduction of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). 

Obviously, the European Union will be closely monitoring developments in Tunisia. After the elections and despite the adverse outlook, Tunisians express a certain optimism that the situation can change.  

“There are two interpretations or visions of what is happening: some say that the regime of Kais Saied is merely a phase, that such periods are a necessary part of the democratic learning process; others say it signals the end of the Revolution and see it as a step backwards,” says a cartoonist known as Z, author of the blog Debatunisie and a critic of the regime. “As an optimist, I’d rather embrace the first view.”  

What do we do with our borders? The right-wing shift in the European political climate in recent years has meant a higher degree of securitisation. At the same time, some are calling for border controls to be reduced or even abolished. Perhaps the answer lies in a change of perspective; a new outlook free from the shackles of capitalism and inspired by degrowth.

Recent national and European elections have marked a shift to the right in European politics. While the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally, RN) failed to win a majority in France’s parliamentary election, it will still be the most represented party in the French Parliament. In other European countries, such as Italy, Finland, and the Netherlands, radical right forces have formed coalition governments.

One of the driving factors behind the success of right-wing forces has been their framing of migration as a key security issue. In the run-up to the European elections, a survey in Germany found that 41 per cent of the population considers refugees, immigration, asylum politics, and integration as the most important problem for the European Union. This widespread perception of out-of-control immigration to the EU has also led once-moderate political forces to promise stricter border enforcement and rapid deportations, in an (often unsuccessful) attempt to take votes away from the far right.

In December 2023, France passed a controversial bill toughening its immigration policies, while in March this year, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) expressed its support for Rwanda-style deportation deals with non-EU countries. Moreover, In April, the EU adopted the new Asylum and Migration Pact after eight long years of negotiations; and shortly before the European elections, Brussels signed a new agreement to contain immigration from Lebanon.    

Right-wing narratives have also linked migration to climate change. While far-right forces are known for their scepticism towards anthropogenic climate change, they have progressively shifted away from pure denialism towards instrumentalising global warming and ecological crises for political purposes. These narratives advocate for tighter border protection by casting migrants as responsible for environmental degradation and framing climate-induced migration as a security threat.

Ahead of the 2019 European elections, the Rassemblement National’s Jordan Bardella stated that “borders are the environment’s greatest ally; it is through them that we will save the planet.”

This emergent discourse of “ecobordering” draws on (neo-)colonial, racialised, and neo-Malthusian logics to present borders as environmental protection and climate solutions. As researchers Joe Turner and Dan Bailey explain, the aspiration behind ecobordering is to “obscure the primary driving causes of the ecological crisis in the entrenched production and consumption practices of Global North economies”, blaming ecological degradation in the Global South instead.

Through the divisive strategy of scapegoating “the other”, these narratives seek to hide responsibilities for a long history of colonialism, exploitation and violence that extend into the present.    

Inaction and militarisation

In recent years, the degrowth movement has increasingly taken issue with global power dynamics and structural drivers of inequality. There is a growing understanding that if degrowth does not converge with demands from the Global South, it risks turning into an “inward-looking, provincial, localised, and eventually exclusive project” that perpetuates the “imperial mode of living” of the Global North.

However, degrowth has yet to develop a comprehensive border perspective that goes beyond local solutions like open localism. Such a perspective must take into account the capitalist system’s fundamental need for borders, as well as the rise of ecobordering narratives.    

In the current capitalist system, the “deep hegemony of borders” is perceived as common sense across a wide spectrum of political actors. In Europe, for example, liberal and progressive actors have justified increased border protection with the need to protect and promote “our European way of life”.

If it wants to challenge the capitalist system of global exploitation, degrowth needs to call into question the border apparatus through which this system protects and perpetuates itself.

The mainstreaming of securitisation discourses has also led to higher spending in the border security and surveillance industry. In 1990, there were no fences at the external borders of the EU/Schengen area. In 2014, the length of border fences was 315 km. By 2022, it was 2,048 km – 13 per cent of the EU’s external land borders. 

A degrowth border perspective should be built on the acknowledgement of historic and present-day responsibilities, as well as principles of solidarity and humanity.

Reflecting this shift in border policies, the budget for the European border and coast guard agency Frontex rose by 2,763 per cent between 2005 and 2020. From 2021-2027, the agency will be provided with 5.6 billion euros – a 194 per cent increase compared to the previous budgetary cycle. Rich countries currently spend 2.3 times more money on border securitisation than on climate finance.

Given that one of the aims of degrowth is to downsize those branches of the economy that are socially and ecologically harmful, border enforcement needs to be put under the spotlight. Indeed, besides its huge human costs, the border security industry has been found to be “profiteering from climate change”. While prospects of climate-induced migration have played a role in border securitisation, another important factor is the nexus between fossil fuel firms and border policing: the same private industries that provide border protection to rich countries also offer their services to the oil industry. This shows how “climate inaction and militarised responses to its consequences increasingly work hand in hand.”    

Degrowth and freedom of movement

So far, degrowth has engaged only marginally with the topic of borders and (im-)migration. In his book Degrowth (2018), Giorgos Kallis dedicates a small section to the issue, dismantling the claim by American economist Herman Daly that immigration poses a threat to a steady-state (or post-growth) economy. ‘

According to Daly, the population growth associated with migration inflows leads to more economic growth. Daly draws on American ecologist Garett Hardins’ “lifeboat ethics”, which claims that each state, similarly to a boat, can only take a certain number of people before exceeding its social and ecological capacities. Kallis rejects that assumption based, among other things, on the observation that countries are not closed containers whose environmental impacts are confined to their national boundaries. He concludes that there is no ecological case for closed borders and no evidence that immigration poses a risk to degrowth.

At the same time, Kallis warns against understanding degrowth as being in favour of open borders, as such a policy might fundamentally undermine the nation-state. While its role continues to be debated within the degrowth community, the state is still seen by many as an essential actor for a social-ecological transformation. The call for open borders or the slogan “No borders, no nation” has also been criticised from the Left for acting as an “empty provocation” that risks to steer and increase existing fears around the competition for public goods, leading to anti-immigration sentiments and the rise of the far-right. 

Drawing attention to the narrow scope of the ongoing debate around degrowth and borders, German sociologist Miriam Lang argues that it is not enough to simply ask for open borders. According to Lang, such a call must consider and criticise how the “imperial mode of living” of rich countries, its associated North-South relationships, and the dominant understanding of a good life are linked to the overall structural crisis of capitalism and the current climate catastrophe.

This debate shows that degrowth still needs to develop a coherent border perspective as part of its project of deep socioecological transformation. What is clear, however, is that a degrowth case for open borders cannot be based on neoliberal or utilitarian considerations that frame immigration as a solution to demographic decline, ageing populations, or a shortage of skilled labour. Rather, a degrowth border perspective should be built on the acknowledgement of historic and present-day responsibilities, as well as principles of solidarity and humanity.

Concrete proposals could include providing safe passages, revising visa and residence laws, and building necessary social infrastructures. The money currently being spent for the securitisation of borders could be redirected towards socially useful projects to assure that everyone has the right to decent housing and the means to adapt to the consequences of climate change.

Global freedom of movement entails the right to move, but also the right to remain – that is, the assurance that one’s livelihood is not endangered by the advance of the capitalist system and the economic growth of rich countries. A degrowth border perspective based on these principles can act as a strong counter-proposal to the divisive narrative of ecobordering.

The agreement signed in Cairo aims to stop migration flows at a time when Egypt’s dire economic situation, the prolonged civil war in Sudan, and Israel’s indiscriminate destruction of Gaza are making Egypt a point of departure towards Europe for Egyptians and transit migrants alike. Deal after deal, the EU is outsourcing migration control, with little consideration for human rights.

A delegation of five European prime ministers, led by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, signed a 7.4 billion euro deal in Cairo, Egypt, on 17 March. It was timely: the EU is preparing to finalise its New Pact on Migration and Asylum, one that will see Egypt added to the list of countries serving as fundamental assets of Europe’s border offshoring framework. 

In recent years, the different crises affecting the Middle East and East Africa have caused a doubling in the number of migrants fleeing from Egypt. The surge in arrivals onto Italian shores back in 2022 led the EU Commission to launch the first phase of an 80 million euro border management programme with Egypt. Since then, the EU’s efforts to contain migration from the North African country have only intensified.  

On 23 January, Josep Borrell and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry shook hands in Brussels to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Egypt. In October 2023, Egyptian officials had visited the headquarters of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. Shortly after, as the Israeli offensive in Gaza forced Palestinians to escape into the south of the Strip near the border with Egypt, Ursula von der Leyen stressed the need to “support Egypt through the current crisis and establish a firm [migration control] partnership.”  

Since then, scant official details have been released, until the deal was sealed on 17 March. In the past weeks, human rights groups had warned that by signing an agreement with Egypt the EU would “risk complicity in abuses” towards migrants, and that the New Pact on Migration and Asylum – which is complemented by similar border control deals with other third countries – will likely “set back European asylum law for decades to come”. 

Rising pressure 

With a population of around 109 million, Egypt is the largest country in North Africa and the Middle East. Political unrest and deep economic woes over the past decade resulted in record annual inflation of 39.7 per cent in August last year. Although this is projected to drop to 26.7 per cent this year, Egypt’s inflation is expected to remain the highest in the region until 2028. 

The economic crisis has pushed tens of thousands of Egyptians to seek opportunities in Europe. In 2022, 21,753 Egyptians made it into the Union. According to the International Organization for Migration, that made Egypt the top source country for Europe-bound migrants. This is a new phenomenon, according to the Egyptian demographer Ayman Zohry. “We do not have an established trend of migration from Egypt to Europe [as we do from] the Maghreb countries”, he says. Instead, Egypt has historically been known as a major hub for transit migrants.   

Egypt currently hosts about 9 million migrants, “most of them transit migrants that are stuck here, wanting to go to Europe”, according to Zohry. Most of these are Sudanese who fled the country as it descended into civil war in April 2023. But Egypt is also a transit hub for people fleeing from the Horn of Africa and, more recently, the war in Gaza.  

The latest reports from humanitarian organisations such as UNRWA claim that at least 1.7 million people in Gaza have been internally displaced since the start of the Israeli offensive. That equates to more than 80 per cent of the population. Most of them fled to Rafah, the southern area of the Gaza Strip close to the border with Egypt, which Israel had designated a “safe zone”. However, Israel’s repeated threats of a land invasion caused many Gazans who had relocated to Rafah to attempt to cross into Egypt. That prompted Egypt to start building a 21-square-kilometer “walled enclosure” next to the border that would accommodate more than 100,000 people in the event that Israel attacked the south of the Strip. The rising hostilities along Egypt’s border with Israel, coupled with the country’s economic issues, means that “the ability of Egypt to keep these transit migrants is decreasing,” Zohry argues. The EU, however, does not seem eager to welcome them. 

Cash for containing departures 

Von der Leyen announced in a letter to EU leaders in December that the Union’s top priority in the creation of the new migration and asylum framework was the strengthening of the bloc’s external borders. With regards to Egypt, the two main ways in which the partnership will be implemented are by enhancing surveillance capacity on both the Mediterranean coast of Egypt and its border with Libya, and by cooperating over the return of “irregular” migrants to their home countries.  

Human Rights Watch has led the efforts in denouncing the EU’s strategic partnership with Egypt. In a letter to the Commission’s president, it warned of Egypt’s hostile environment for migrants and refugees. Claudio Francavilla, Human Rights Watch’s EU advocacy associate director, told the Green European Journal that “for years, [the organisation] has documented a wide range of abuses by Egyptian authorities and civilians against Black African migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, including arbitrary detention and physical abuse, sexual violence, racism, [and] lack of access to basic health and education services.” He highlights how, for example, Egypt has created barriers to protection for Sudanese trying to flee the conflict, and committed refoulement by forcibly returning Eritreans without assessing their asylum claims. 

However, Egyptians themselves could be among the worst affected by the EU partnership. “Providing a highly abusive government with dual-use surveillance technology and training on how to use it heightens the risk that it may be used for internal surveillance and targeting of opponents,” says Francavilla. The 2022 deal, according to Human Rights Watch, has “contributed to pervasive corruption and mismanagement by the Egyptian government, which in turn has led to a dire economic situation” and produced conditions that are driving Egyptians to leave. The letter from the rights group also claims that instead of “calling out the serious abuses by the Egyptian government, European governments and institutions have decided to reward Egypt’s leaders.”  

Egyptians themselves could be among the worst affected by the EU partnership.

These concerns, Francavilla argues, are not limited to the Egypt case. “The list [of EU migrant deals with third countries] is unfortunately likely to grow, as EU governments and institutions insist on concluding ‘cash for containing departures’ deals, with little if any regard for the migrants’ and asylum seekers’ fate.” He adds that it will limit progress on human rights and democracy in countries of origin and transit more broadly.   

Outsourcing is the new normal 

Over the past decade, efforts by EU member states to prevent migrants and asylum seekers from reaching their borders have intensified, according to Sara Prestianni and Elena Bizzi from EuroMed Rights, a network of human rights groups. “One strategy to reach this goal [is to fund] programs for third countries’ coast guards and border police, and striking untransparent deals with undemocratic countries and authoritarian regimes,” they say. 

Libya has served as a laboratory for border externalisation practices in which the EU’s responsibility for handling migration is outsourced. Gaddafi’s overthrow in 2011 culminated in a state of semi-anarchy, and migrants left for Europe in increasing numbers. This prompted the EU to launch Operation Sophia in concert with the Fayez El-Sarraj-led Government of National Accord, in which a naval force was sent to Libya to neutralise attempts by migrants to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.  

Admiral Enrico Credendino, commander of Operation Sophia, told journalists in 2017 that the deal with El-Sarraj was intended to “create a Libyan system capable of stopping migrants before they reach international waters”. This would absolve the EU of legal responsibility on pushbacks, he added. “As a result, it will no longer be considered a push-back because it will be the Libyans who will be rescuing the migrants and doing whatever they consider appropriate with the migrants.” 

Since the Libyan experiment, the EU has struck numerous other deals with third countries to keep migrants and refugees far from European borders. First came the EU-Turkey deal in 2016, which led to the rise of shootings and beatings of Syrian asylum seekers by Turkish guards.  

Then came funding to Morocco, such as the 500 million euros agreed in the wake of the Melilla massacre in 2022, when Spanish and Moroccan border guards shot rubber bullets and teargas at some 1,700 migrants and asylum seekers kettled into a small holding yard on the Morocco-Melilla border, causing a stampede that, according to some estimates, left at least 37 migrants dead. Since the package was announced, organisations such as Walking Borders claim to have witnessed “increasingly militarised and violent migratory controls against migrants” as well as “an increase in the mortality rates of the boats that have left [Morocco]”.  

In July 2023, Tunisia and the European Union signed a memorandum of understanding on “a strategic and global partnership” that echoes the deal with Egypt. In the months since, EuroMed Rights claims to have recorded multiple forms of abuse by Tunisian authorities against sub-Saharan migrants, including physical violence, firearms use, engine removal and boat collisions. “These kinds of externalisation policies and deals push people on the move to find other, more dangerous migratory routes to escape border controls, thus leading to more violence and deaths,” EuroMed Rights says. “According to official data, since 2014, almost 30,000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea trying to reach Europe.” But the real number, the group says, is likely much higher.  

EuroMed Rights is afraid that the next EU Pact on Migration and Asylum will “maintain the dangerous concept of ‘safe third countries’ to enable Member States to return asylum seekers despite the risk of human rights violations.” In fact, besides Egypt’s onboarding as a strategic partner, the Pact also seeks to prevent migration flows coming from other strategic areas.  

As for the Balkans, Albania has agreed to host two migrant processing centres on its territory that will be run by Italy, and Bosnia and Herzegovina is set to receive 6.4 million euros in funding for a project that will focus on improving integrated border management. Meanwhile, the EU and Spain have agreed to pay Mauritania’s government 210 million euros to prevent transit migrants departing the West African country towards Europe. 

The proliferation of these offshoring deals led civil society organisations and human rights groups such as EuroMed Rights to cooperatively launch the campaign #NotThisPact in December 2023. More recently, on 14 February 2024, 81 civil society organisations called on MEPs to reject the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum at the EU Parliament’s Justice Committee (LIBE) vote. 

Migrants as a security threat 

The idea for a new Pact on migration first took root almost four years ago following von der Leyen’s claim in September 2020 that “migration is complex. The old system no longer works”. It is expected to see the light before the EU elections in June. This new Pact will differ from the previous one in three fundamental ways. First, border procedures to deal with asylum requests will be accelerated; second, member states will jointly introduce shared-responsibility mechanisms; and third, they will develop mechanisms for regulating “crises”. 

The Pact’s drafts contain no explicit references to border externalisation, says Alberto Neidhardt, senior policy analyst at the European Policy Center. “However, you could make the argument that in order to make the Pact sustainable, the number of arrivals will have to be kept low, and member states will, for that reason, seek to outsource responsibility to third countries.”  

The change in EU migration policy reflects a broader shift to the right among European governments.

The rhetoric used by von der Leyen to explain the motives for the “comprehensive partnerships” between EU member states and non-members has been cause for concern. In a letter, she wrote: “Those who have no right to come to Europe must know they will not be allowed to stay.” EuroMed Rights has said that the wording of the letter securitises the movement of people. “Migrants are treated as a security threat, with a security/military approach rather than a protection approach.” 

This wording is not accidental, the group points out: “It is important to remember that these policies are implemented by member states, with the support of tech and security companies.” A Cambridge University investigation in 2018 found that security advisory groups are “closely linked to companies and institutions that win EU-funded security projects”. Neidhardt argues that “to implement all of these new reforms you need a lot of funding. These lobbies or security companies will likely try to benefit from increased budgeting for border management purposes following the Pact.” Frontex, the largest EU agency, saw its budget skyrocket from 142 million euros in 2015 to 754 million euros in 2022.  

Neidhardt is not surprised by the securitisation of EU migration policy and the growth of security agencies and lobbies. “I think it would have been unrealistic to expect policymakers to come up with reforms protective of the right to asylum and protection in Europe. That is just not the political environment nor the age in which we live.”  

Human Rights Watch’s Francavilla echoes this, arguing that the change in EU migration policy reflects a broader shift to the right among European governments. “The EU is de facto implementing the migration policies sought by the far right, contributing to legitimising those groups and arguably helping them to succeed. We have argued that the EU’s migration obsession is shaking the credibility of the bloc’s commitment to its human rights obligations, affecting, in turn, the EU’s credibility as a principled international player.” 

Back in Egypt, demography experts know that the EU’s so-called new vision is not the answer. “Migration flows are like water flows, you cannot stop them,” Zohry states. “Even if you try to build fences, migrants fleeing from hardship will not stop trying to reach their destination.” 

Humans have always moved across regions and continents. Yet how that happens today is increasingly dystopian, heavily bound within the nation-state and capitalist logic. Even as migrants endure militarised, inhumane systems and are called a threat to Europe’s “way of life”, they are also courted as indispensable for the economy. Aleksandra Savanović invites us to step back and, shedding the confines of preconceived ideas about future and progress, imagine together a more utopian migration.

Migration is one of today’s most powerful, and most entrenched, imaginaries. The word conjures up images of walls, borders, police, uncertainty, destitution, misery, and death. Migration is most commonly discussed as a menace, an unwanted but “necessary evil”, a reluctant sacrifice offered at the altar of economic health.  

Political discourse around migration is saturated with fear. Migrants are framed as both a crisis, a threat to our identity, here to “destroy our way of life”, and as unfair adversaries in the labour market, here to “take our jobs”. Encouraged by far-right narratives, which see migration as a symptom of today’s globalised, free-rein capitalism, public concerns are directed first and foremost at the protection of national borders, to protect our way of life, our jobs. The rhetoric is nostalgic, longing for those good old times of (sovereign!) nations, family wages, and (white) male bread-winners – no matter that sovereignty, family wages, and decent jobs were only available to some.  

To a certain extent, the European Union’s policy reflects these sentiments. In fact, the term “European way of life” has emerged as the new official narrative of the EU since the 2019 European elections. Its approach is above all practical, forged through compromise among EU member states as (economic) liberals championing more “market” and diversity clash with social conservatives claiming to protect “traditional” – or supposedly non-capitalist – institutions like the family and nation, often alluding to ethnic purity. But even right-wingers must admit – although not explicitly – that without a steady influx of foreign labour, most EU countries would soon be facing economic collapse. They therefore accept immigration but want more filtering and fewer rights for immigrants. A scandal in Poland relating to hundreds of thousands of working visas being issued in return for bribes, which took place while anti-immigration party Law and Justice (PiS) was in power, is a case in point. The ostensible paradox is illusory.  

A false dichotomy  

The supposed dichotomy between capitalism and the nation-state – as that between family and capitalism – is a false one. As philosopher Nancy Fraser puts it, capitalism must be understood as an institutionalised social order on par with feudalism rather than solely a mode of production based on exploitation.¹ It could not exist without incorporating and relying on the existing systems of politics, nature, and social reproduction. It is nation-states that hold the “extra-economic means” – to use the terminology of Marxist political theorist Ellen Meiksins Wood² – of political, judicial, and police/military power through which capitalism’s supposedly independent economic “mechanisms” can be put to work.  

The situation is no different in the context of a globalised economy. More than ever, global capital depends on the uneven development of nation-states. It “feeds on” the differentiation of social conditions among national economies and exploitable low-cost labour regimes. The nation-state is not an innocent bystander but the instrument of this differentiation.  

Sociologist Melinda Cooper argues that economic liberalism and the new social conservatism in fact represent two sides of the same, capitalist, coin.³ Drawing from Marx’s Grundrisse, she theorises that capitalism is constituted by an unrelenting movement to overcome its limits, to subsume everything under its law of value, and simultaneously by an equally powerful counter-effort to impose them. The migrant – as cheap labour – is thus produced in the interplay between the unrestricted reach of capitalism and the necessary confining borders of nation-states. In other words, the positing of the nation-state as foundational at the same time as (relatively) permitting migration and movement across its borders is what constitutes the migrant as cheap labour.  

Dystopian outlook: Fortress Europe  

Fortress Europe, or the Mediterranean graveyard, as an increasingly realistic vision and outcome of Europe’s migration policy, comes as a direct expression of this capitalism-inherent contradiction. Between “more market” and “more border protection”, the EU opts for both.  

Between “more market” and “more border protection”, the EU opts for both.

The EU’s “historic” migration deal announced in June 2023 intends to strike a balance between the two. On the one hand, it introduces a new two-track filtering system, separating prospective and non-prospective immigrants right at the border: those deemed unlikely to be accepted are subjected to stricter procedures, more easily rejected, and shipped away to basically anywhere the country deems appropriate (including places with documented human rights abuses). On the other hand, the EU prescribes “mandatory solidarity”: the obligation to relocate some 30,000 successful applicants per year across the continent. Each country has the possibility to either take in migrants or pay 20,000 euros for each person they reject. The money collected would go into a common fund to be used to finance undefined projects abroad.  

Though undefined, one may easily surmise what those projects are. During her visit to Tunisia with Italian far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in July, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised to “support Tunisia with border management”, for which the EU will provide 100 million euros. Similar funding schemes and agreements to outsource migration management and detention facilities abound. A report from 2021 found that the EU and its member states fund the construction of detention centres, conduct other detention-related activities (like the training of guards), and advocate for detention in 22 countries in the Balkans, Africa, Eastern Europe, and West Asia, thus emulating the heavily criticised Australian model, with the intention to eventually establish offshore processing facilities. The privatisation of migrant detention is already in progress.  

The same goes for border protection. The EU funnels significant funds into bolstering personnel and installing sophisticated technologies at borders, including thermal cameras, motion sensors, drones, and sound cannons for surveillance and deterrence. Member states have so far built close to 1800 kilometres of walls on their borders, and the EU is under increasing pressure to start financing these endeavours.  

Inside Fortress Europe, however, movement is encouraged and in some instances even idealised, praised as one of the EU’s success stories (as in the case of Erasmus+). Whereas immigration from outside of Europe is set to destroy the “European way of life”, intra-EU migration is seen as advancing it. Nevertheless, it is framed in similarly functional terms, to be conducted only when there’s a need (i.e. when national workers are hard to come by).  

Against this backdrop, calls for reform such as those proposing a drastic increase and expansion of circular migration schemes to encompass third-country nationals beyond those with visa-free travel (and intra-EU migrants) appear short-sighted, if not utilitarian and discriminatory. In this manner, liberal thinkers such as Branko Milanović propose schemes that could range from those presently existing in Gulf countries – where foreign workers have no rights whatsoever – to those that offer migrants a wider set of rights but only for limited periods of time.⁴ Aware that his solution is bound to produce an underclass, he nevertheless prefers it to Fortress Europe.  

However, the morally dubious perspective that discusses migration only in terms of what Europe “needs” is equally dystopian, not to mention that it fails to take into account the cost of all that “circulation” for those doing it or propose ways to approach the upcoming mass climate migration.  

Progressive utopias

Fortress Europe certainly isn’t the only dystopia out there. In light of the climate crisis, new concepts of communal life are cropping up everywhere. From Saudi Arabia’s plan for smart city The Line to billionaire Peter Thiel’s autonomous city “somewhere in the Mediterranean”, the future looks grim. So what if we turn the tables? What if, instead of marching towards dystopia, we put on utopian lenses?   

What if, instead of marching towards dystopia, we put on utopian lenses?

The supposed “end of history” – the idea that humanity has evolved to its final political and economic system in capitalist liberal democracy, as “there is no alternative” – also meant the “end of future” in philosopher Franco Berardi’s terms,⁵ or the “end of utopia” in sociologist Rastko Močnik’s.⁶ It heralded the rejection of utopias, seeing them as dangerous projects, irrational and escapist, or even potentially totalitarian.  

Underpinning this idea of the end of history is the modernist pairing of utopia and progress,⁷ the marriage of utopian impulses with the view of history as a linear succession of stages, each better than the last. At the pinnacle of progress, no higher stages are to be found; there is nowhere further to go.  

We now know that history never ended. In fact, we are living through its turbulent “return”. We also know that utopias didn’t end either. They simply got a sort of dystopian overhaul. We didn’t stop imagining other worlds (there are plenty of worse worlds we can think of); we stopped imagining better ones.  

Countering the modernist framing of utopia, the work of philosopher Ernst Bloch decouples utopias from the idea of progress. After all, the notion of progress is inseparable from various kinds of subjugation: patriarchy, colonialism, imperialism, and exploitation, to name just a few. Bloch sees utopia as a critical analysis of conventional constructions (or imaginaries) of reality, time, and the possible – a critical negation of that which merely is and a challenge to assumptions about what is possible and impossible in the present. In Blochian philosophy, the future is open; it is presented not as a blueprint but rather as a direction, a horizon.  

New horizons

Following Bloch in his search for non-progressive utopias, his insistence on the possibility of change and the role of subjects within it (as opposed to current trends of leaving human subjects out and counting on objects, nature, or technology), and his emphasis on processes – on the becoming, rather than on being – we could try sketching out other migration policy directions.  

A place to start is turning away from utilitarian approaches that permit migration on the basis of need – like labour shortages or ageing populations – and, instead, taking a proactive, subject-centred view on migration futures.  

A radical examination of what the EU is and should be about is indispensable to avoid the apartheid-shaped ditch we are headed to if Europe becomes home to a two-tier system of citizenship. What exactly are those “European values” so tirelessly vaunted? At the moment, it seems to be an arbitrary selection of characteristics Europe wants to be known for – like democracy, the rule of law, and economic prosperity – which omits inconvenient ones like domination, exploitation, colonialism, fascism, and the ongoing brutal treatment of migrants. Another trope, the need to preserve a European “way of life”, a post-modern fascist favourite phrase and an official EU narrative, now acts as a suitable replacement for the overly problematic “blood and soil” justification. Identitarian reasoning is thus central to the EU’s thinking on migration, which is therefore bound to fail.  

A radical examination of what the EU is and should be about is indispensable to avoid the apartheid-shaped ditch we are headed to.

Moving away from a focus on ethno-nationalistic or even cultural bonds and instead building communities united around common goals – such as ecological sustainability, quality health care, and social protections – would shift the EU from a dystopian outlook to the realm of utopia. This scenario would also imply reconsidering citizenship laws – a step European elites seem unwilling to take.  

Curiously, however, the Serbian government might.⁸ Serbia recently adopted amendments to its citizenship law that would, if passed, allow immigrants and asylum seekers to receive Serbian citizenship after just 12 months of temporary residence. Responding to the move, EU officials warned that harmonising Serbia’s migration policy with the EU’s is essential for the functioning of the visa-free regime currently in place.  

In their book The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow offer a convincing rebuttal of the common wisdom that human societies advance from one stage to another in a linear “progressive” fashion.⁹ In fact, humans have shifted between hierarchical and egalitarian forms of organisation for millennia, consciously building and destroying social orders. Graeber and Wengrow identify three basic social freedoms: freedom to disobey; freedom to move away; and freedom to create and transform social orders. These are found across cultures and centuries, facilitating the ability of pre-modern peoples to leave behind – by transforming, destroying, or simply abandoning – social setups that have become inappropriate or unwanted.  

In contrast to the modern (Western) concept of individual freedom, where to be free means to be self-sufficient and as such is insepara ble from private property, for the indigenous societies of America, individual freedom was embedded within structures of care; it implied that people permitted each other to live without fear of falling through the cracks. So why not re-examine the very foundations of our social environments?  

What if, instead of investing in detention centres, we invest in elaborate social infrastructures that facilitate immigration by providing appropriate shelter, subsistence, and guidance? What if we use existing infrastructures not for profit-making but for humanity-saving purposes? What if we allow the creation of autonomous communities that develop their own avenues for migration among themselves? Dystopian avenues are already here, so why not try for utopian ones as well? What if we are no longer compelled to own but rather to take care of, to look after, to become custodians of our shared social and natural wealth? This future has no script. There’s no certainty about how it goes. It’s entirely open-ended.  

Perhaps, then, the most crucial step to be taken lies in the realm of imagination, in an effort to radically challenge the notions of what is possible, to break away from collective, socially engineered, and subsequently naturalised ideas about what can and cannot be achieved. What happens next is in our hands.

1. Nancy Fraser & Rahel Jaeggi (2018). Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory. Cambridge, Oxford, New York & Boston: Polity. ︎
2. Ellen Meiksins Wood (2002). The Origin of Capitalism. London & New York: Verso. ︎
3. Melinda Cooper (2019). Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism. New York: Zone Books.  ︎
4. Branko Milanović (2019). Capitalism, Alone. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press. ︎
5. Franco Berardi (2011). After the Future. Chico: AK Press. ︎
6. Rastko Močnik (1995). How Much Fascism? Ljubljana: Studia Humanitaria Minora. ︎
7. Thoughts on utopia and its interpretation in Blochian terms I owe to conversations with Maja Kantar and her unpublished work. ︎
8. However, the move is certainly much more utilitarian than utopian (which doesn’t mean it has no utopian potential): it most probably comes as an effort to keep Russian citizens, or rather their successful businesses, in the country (between 40,000 and 100,000 of them, depending on the estimate, moved to Serbia on the eve and just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, opening up to 5000 businesses). ︎
9. David Graeber & David Wengrow (2021). The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. London: Allen Lane. ︎

The Greens’ congress in Karlsruhe came at an existential time for the party, caught up between constant coalition fighting and growing hostility to climate policy. But centre stage was migration, on which younger generations of Greens are at odds with the pragmatic approach of the party’s leadership.

If last year was a tough one for the Greens, the last few weeks were a nightmare. The party came under increasing pressure from members, who become angrier and angrier about Green leaders accommodating the ever-tightening asylum policy. In both Hesse and Bayern, the Greens lost elections – in Hesse they were even expelled from government by the Christian Democrats, who decided to team up with the social-democratic SPD instead.  

Moreover, on 15 November, the Constitutional Court ruled that the government’s plan to repurpose 60-billion-euro from remaining emergency COVID-19 finances for the Climate and Transition Fund was illegal. This money was set up to be the federal government’s lubricant for numerous green revolution projects. Now the money cannot be used. Add this to constant fighting within the government and its falling approval ratings, and it is no wonder that some opinion-makers are beginning to wonder whether the coalition will survive this latest blow. 

In other words, last weekend’s Green Party congress in Karlsruhe came not a moment too soon: there was a lot to explain and discuss. The first evening was used to reassure members. The Greens were working hard in government and would come up with solutions. The debt brake, which was at the root of the Constitutional Court’s condemnation, must be modernised. There must be “Mehr Herz statt Merz”: more heart and less of the Christian Democrat president Friedrich Merz, who is constantly attacking the government and the Greens in particular. The days that followed were reserved for agreeing on the programme and the list of candidates for the European elections – even though it had been clear for weeks that the issue of migration would take centre stage. 

The Young Greens, led by the newly elected duo of Svenja Appuhn and Katharina Stolla, presented an uncompromising motion entitled “We are unconditionally committed to humanity”. The motion is an indictment of what they see as the failings of Green ministers in the federal government. It makes a clear demand for all Green Party representatives to refuse further tightening of asylum laws: restrictive rules; the reduction of social benefits for refugees; lowering protection standards; the expansion of listed safe countries of origin; accelerated procedures; the reception of refugees in camps at external borders; and the return of refugees to supposedly safe third countries. 

Their speeches at the congress were ideologically grounded and emotionally fierce: “No human being is illegal. Every day people are afraid of being deported. Every day refugees in Germany are afraid of racist attacks.” They do not believe that embracing right-wing policies will win the Greens more voters: “People vote for the original. We are not the original for expulsions. We are the original for universal human rights.” They see their position as an endorsement of Green ministers: thanks to their motion, the Greens in different governments will be able to exert more pressure during negotiations, they argue. Their speeches were well received. 

The opposing establishment of Green ministers and party leadership let it go for a while, but then lashed out just as vehemently. “This is a disguised vote of no confidence, which in reality says: leave the government”, said Vice-Chancellor and Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck, arguing that other factions would then inevitably lead policy-making. 

Both call themselves realists. One side says, migration is reality, how we deal with it is politics. The other says, the reality is that we are on our own.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock admitted that she could not meet the wishes of the motion. “If I imagine that this is about every refugee child in Thessaloniki, should I say that unfortunately I cannot help to negotiate, that my Hungarian colleague now has to do it alone?” She reiterated that an agreement on the common asylum system would have to happen soon in the coming months. For her, doing everything possible to ensure an agreement is vital, “because those who want to destroy Europe – the right-wing populists, the Putins of the world – are just waiting for Europe to fall apart on migration.” 

The leaders did agree that they had to fight harder for core Green values but that this motion was not the way for them to fight harder. On the contrary, it would force them to leave the battlefield. The motion, they said, was not supportive. It was quite the opposite. 

Between the two camps, a diametrically opposed view exists on what is needed to make asylum policy as humane as possible. For those largely standing with both feet outside government office no tightening is possible, while those mainly sitting around decision-making tables see concessions as the only way to keep the policy from derailing. The first group does not want to give an inch on human rights, the second sees the battle lost but wants to limit the damage as much as possible. Both call themselves realists. One side says, migration is reality, how we deal with it is politics. The other says, the reality is that we are on our own. 

The heated debate lasted about two and a half hours. In the end, the casting vote was less tight than expected. The congress voted by a clear majority in favour of the text put forward by the Green Party leadership, which states: “Control, order and repatriation are part of the reality of an immigration country like Germany.” Soon there will be faster asylum procedures in Germany, more deportations and payment cards for asylum seekers to stop them sending money back home, more robust EU external borders, all with Green Party support. 

A feeling that many Greens in Europe have: politics are moving to the right, human rights are being eroded, and no one seems to be able to build a dam.

The Young Greens will not give in. After the vote, co-chair Stolla said: “I think it has become clear that there is very, very strong dissatisfaction in the party with this asylum policy that many people do not support.” With their motion, they have expressed a feeling that many Greens in Europe have: politics are moving to the right, human rights are being eroded, and no one seems to be able to build a dam. The Young Greens at least are keeping their mother party on its toes.

Progressives are under pressure to respond to migration as inflows reach record levels and hardliners gain electoral ground. In Germany, the governing coalition is searching for a political answer that could respond to this pressure as well as pull the rug out from under conservative and right-wing forces.

Things are not going well for the governing parties. Voters are fleeing them in droves. The latest poll shows that the governing parties together have only about 32 per cent of the vote. That is 20 per cent less than when they took office in December 2021, and exactly the same as the Christian Democratic CDU, which is Germany’s largest political party – as confirmed also by the results of the state elections in Hesse and Bavaria on 8 October.

In Hesse, the Social Democrats, led by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, had their worst election result ever. The Greens lost the most, with -5 per cent, and the Liberal FDP missed the electoral threshold, as it did also in Bavaria. Even more alarming is the AfD’s big gain after months of shining in the polls. Nationally, the far-right party is now polling above 20 per cent, double its 2021 result. In some former East German states, it is even polling above 30 per cent. In Bavaria and Hesse it won 14.6 and 13.1 per cent respectively.

Immigration is not only the spearhead of the AfD; it is currently the most important political issue for 44 per cent of Germans, according to a recent survey.

It is striking that for once the governing parties are pretty much in agreement in their analyses: there needs to be more work and less arguing, there needs to be stronger leadership from Chancellor Schlolz, and a stricter migration policy is urgently needed to cut the AfD off at the knees. The Liberals are leading the way with their call for eine Asylwende, an asylum turnaround. Immigration is not only the spearhead of the AfD; it is currently the most important political issue for 44 per cent of Germans, according to a recent survey.

The government did not take long to react. Just a few days after the Bavaria and Hesse elections, it presented a new “migration package” to simplify deportations but also make it easier to access work. Green vice-chancellor Robert Habeck co-announced the decisions, saying that migration is “a serious test” for the cohesion of the country, and that the government has a duty to “relieve the burden on the municipalities.”

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who recently helped lay the groundwork for the EU’s new migration agreement, has now notified the Commission of permanent controls at the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland. Temporary controls at the Austrian border, which have been in place since autumn 2015, will be extended for another six months.

The state premiers met to discuss migration. It is well known that they want more resources for the reception, care, and integration of the rapidly growing number of refugees. They are demanding at least 10,500 euros per capita per year. They also want better border protection, alternatives to cash payments to asylum seekers, and faster access to work for those who have a legal right to stay. Finally, they request that asylum seekers are involved in community service.

The Christian Democrats have drawn up a 26-point programme that goes even further. Chairman Friedrich Merz demands that Scholz signals that the limit of 200,000 asylum seekers per year has been reached and calls for repatriation and transit centres at the borders.

Scholz has welcomed all of these initiatives. During a debate in the Bundestag, he called on the opposition for “cooperation instead of bickering and power games.” In an interview with Der Spiegel, he said that “We must finally deport on a large scale those who have no right to stay in Germany.”

The Greens find themselves in a quandary. Migration is not the issue on which they feel most at home. Several parties see them as the party standing in the way of a solution. The CDU/CSU accuses them of constantly denying reality, and is increasingly daring to replace the Greens and Liberals in a government coalition with the SPD. Attacks on the Greens are not only coming from the opposition: in September, FDP general secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai called them “a security risk for the country”.

Harsh criticism towards the government came from the Young Greens, who see stricter migration rules as the wrong way to react to the AfD’s rise.

It is not easy for the Greens to find their own line in this political battle. On the one hand, Winfried Kretschmann, the Green Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, urges the party to adopt a tougher line on migration. In an interview with SWR, he said that “all measures that serve to curb irregular migration must be taken”.

Harsh criticism towards the government came from the Young Greens, who see stricter migration rules as the wrong way to react to the AfD’s rise.

In early October, the Greens’ own Federal Working Group on Migration and Refugees had also criticised the party for giving up its humanitarian principles in context of the EU’s asylum reform. With the hard line on immigration taking over in domestic politics as well, discontent within the party and at the grassroots level only seems likely to increase.

Now all eyes are on the Green Party’s congress in Karlsruhe from 23 to 26 November, where migration will certainly be high on the agenda.

In the midst of an escalating migration crisis, Spain’s government outsourced migration control. This policy shift provided a lucrative opportunity for companies operating in the crisis hotspots. In a revealing essay that earned them recognition as European Press Prize runner-ups, El Confidencial and Fundación PorCausa delve into this multi-million euro business, exposing the intricate web of contracts and hidden interests behind migration management.

At the end of 2020, the Canary Islands experienced a record number of irregular migrant arrivals. That year, more than 23,000 people arrived in cayuco and patera boats, most of them from Western Sahara under the control of Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal. The authorities could not cope. The images of migrants crammed together and sleeping rough on the quay at Arguineguín made all the front pages and went round the world. The migratory upsurge was repeated in 2021, consolidating the so-called Canary Islands route, one of the deadliest on the planet.

What few know is that, almost 2,000 kilometres away, in the Madrid city of Alcorcón, this migration crisis became a great business opportunity for one entrepreneur. Juan Benigno Alonso Alarcón, owner of Alonso Hipercas, turned over at least 2.3 million euros by supplying “emergency” food to migrants sheltered in temporary stay centres in the Canary Islands. Local newspapers reported on the poor quality of the food supplied to the migrants at that time.

Spain is already one of Europe’s main sea and land gateways for irregular immigration. The reinforcement of border controls on the Turkish and Libyan routes, as well as instability in the Sahel countries and problems with Morocco, which uses migrants as an instrument of pressure against the Spanish government, have increased migratory flows towards the Canary Islands and, to a lesser extent, the mainland. Proof of this is that the most numerous nationality in the last migration crisis at the gates of Melilla – which resulted in 23 deaths, according to Morocco, and 37 according to NGOs – was Sudanese. At the same time, migration control is becoming a growing market, financed with public money and hidden behind a cloak of secrecy.

Who wins with migration control? El Confidencial and Fundación porCausa have analysed all published central government contracts related to migration, from January 2014 to April 2022. This investigation covers 2,795 public contracts totalling 981.8 million euros. This is just the visible tip of the iceberg. This is what we have found.

Border business: always the same winners

In recent years, the government has reinforced its entire migration control deployment, from the Guardia Civil’s maritime action vessels to the network of external surveillance radars, including the modernisation of the fences of Ceuta and Melilla, equipped with the latest technology. The ranking of the companies that have benefited most from government contracts in the area of migration includes some of the main Spanish and Ibex 35 companies. The ACS Group (Clece, Cobra and Retevisión, among others), owned by Florentino Pérez and second in the ranking, has a diversified portfolio that ranges from the organisation of awareness-raising campaigns in refugee centres to the deployment of private security guards in the Aliens offices, including the security lights surrounding the port of Melilla or the provision of meals and the cleaning of centres where undocumented migrants are held.

Indra, one of the first to take advantage of the emerging migration control market, also occupies a prominent position. Indra not only operates Renfe’s website or designs applications such as Covid Radar, but also maintains the radar network used by the Guardia Civil to intercept small boats, manages the video cameras at border crossings and supplies fingerprint and passport scanners for Barcelona and Madrid airports. Of the 58 contracts awarded to Indra in the field of migration, 45 were exempted from public tender. The Indra group has more than 52,000 employees, but, in several of these public contracts, it is listed as a “small and medium-sized enterprise”, a condition that can favour the award of a contract. In response to questions from porCausa and El Confidencial, Indra explains that it does not apply as an SME in the tenders and refers to the responsible contracting body: “We understand that this is an error”.

Another company that stands out in the ranking is Eulen, which focuses on the management of detention centres for foreigners. Also appearing are Air Europa and Air Nostrum, which handle deportation flights, and El Corte Inglés, which sells computers, air conditioners, mattresses, furniture and other products for migrant detention centres, immigration offices and other state agencies. This company also participates in the management of the ‘anti-immigration radars’ scattered along the Spanish coast and even supplies the visa printers used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

An opaque and unknown industry

The control and management of migration in Spain move hundreds of millions of public funds every year, but it is still an unknown issue for the general public. This is largely due to the opacity that is commonplace in the field of migration on the part of the public administration: six out of every 10 contracts analysed were awarded without a public tender, and the specifications and other details are often not published. The figure includes minor contracts, which by default are not put out to tender, but among which it is common for them to be awarded for the maximum amount allowed to go this way. Journalists are allowed to enter prisons, military barracks, hospitals and other critical infrastructure, but not alien detention centres and other parts of the migration control system.

With the information available, based on the data analysed, it can be affirmed that the Ministry of the Interior is the one that allocates the most money for migration control (five out of every 10 euros). But we know that not everything is there, so this analysis cannot be exhaustive. Often, the Interior Ministry imposes a ‘confidential’ stamp on these contracts, citing national security reasons. The ministry does not provide estimated figures on its spending on border control. Moreover, in recent years, the government has awarded contracts worth millions to private companies or entities that then subcontract to other companies, adding another layer of opacity. The transparency law recognises the right to request information from any public institution, but not from private organisations. For example, the latest renovations of the fences in Ceuta and Melilla fell to Transformación Agraria S.A. (32 million euros), which in turn works with subcontractors. Transformación Agraria S.A. (Tragsa) does not provide information on these works, nor is it obliged to do so. This is the same logic applied by the Ministry of Migration when it signed an agreement with the Red Cross to take charge of the humanitarian and emergency reception system at the Arguineguín wharf. Neither the Interior, nor Migration, nor the Red Cross provide the specifications of these contracts.

Spain, a laboratory for migration control

The migration control business is going international. Spain functions as a laboratory in which new technologies are tested, from drones to crossing detectors, which are subsequently acquired by foreign states. When Zapatero’s government decided to install concertinas on the fences of Ceuta and Melilla, the manufacturer of these steel razor wire fences, the Malaga-based Mora Salazar, was barely a provincial company. Today, Mora Salazar is a multinational with offices in Berlin and exports concertina to some 30 countries, including Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Sudan. Another ‘made in Spain’ migration control product with wide international projection is the Integrated External Surveillance System (SIVE), designed by Indra and operated by the Guardia Civil. This system has already been acquired by a large number of countries, from Portugal and Romania to Hong Kong. The Interior does not provide the SIVE contract specifications and assures that “it has not carried out any contracting with the company Indra in the migratory field”.

What started as a domestic business has grown into a major industry attracting numerous foreign companies. There are already three foreign companies in the top 10 of this market. The first is Babcock, a British company that operates the Maritime Rescue air service for 271 million euros. Babcock maintains a ‘low-cost’ business model that results in regular conflicts with its workforce, according to complaints by the CGT union.

In 2019, an investigation published in elDiario.es revealed that the three planes used by Babcock to carry out rescues in the Mediterranean were flying with broken radars. For at least five months, the professionals of Salvamento Marítimo only had their eyes to locate drifting pateras. Radar has a range of 30 nautical miles, while human eyesight only has a range of two miles in maximum visibility. That year, at least 552 people died trying to reach the Spanish coast via the Mediterranean, according to IOM data.

Security sources who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity express their concern and argue that France is Morocco’s best ally. The same sources agree that there is a risk that these French companies, which are closely linked to the political power in their country (a common occurrence in the defence sector), could use the information they have in favour of third countries, contrary to Spain’s interests. Thales, ATOS, Inetum and Eiffage did not respond to questions asked by this newspaper.

Africa, the outsourced frontier

From the beaches of Senegal it is possible to glimpse the extensive deployment of the Spanish Guardia Civil in that country. The Guardia Civil’s boats and helicopters sweep the Senegalese coastline day and night to prevent canoes from setting sail for the Canary Islands. The same dynamic also extends to Mauritania. At the airport in Dakar, Senegal’s capital, it is a National Police officer, not a Senegalese gendarme, who checks passengers’ documents before boarding.

The government’s efforts to prevent the arrival of migrants are not limited to Spain’s physical borders, but also extend to the countries of origin and transit. Spain deploys agents and military troops to combat migration from Africa. In addition, each year, the Spanish government spends large sums of money to subcontract a long list of African governments and rewards those that do the most to repress migration flows. This investigation was able to locate and analyse 236 contracts related to the outsourcing of border control for more than 93 million euros. This expenditure is mainly made through the International and Ibero-American Foundation (FIIAPP), which is attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, although the Ministries of the Interior and Defence are also involved. In return, these African governments, including several authoritarian regimes, act as border guards. The externalisation of migration control is deepening.

Defence responds that it does not allocate resources to “projects and contracts directly related to migration”, but acknowledges that, “in certain situations”, the Armed Forces provide “operational and logistical support” in emergencies “of a migratory nature”. For its part, the Foreign Ministry does not provide the specifications for the 28 contracts requested and explains that the FIIAPP’s migration projects in Morocco and other African countries are financed by European Union funds. Furthermore, it does not detail whether Spain has mechanisms in place to prevent these products from being used to violate the fundamental rights of migrants, but assures that the country “ensures the guarantee and respect for fundamental rights in the exercise of its external action”.

The Spanish government’s perks and aid to countries that cooperate in the fight against irregular migration include everything: all-terrain vehicles, trucks, motorbikes, night vision goggles, drones, balaclavas, computers, equipment for intercepting communications, biometric recognition programmes, radars, video cameras, military helmets, bulletproof vests, detachable hangars, generators and even socks. Spain also provides training, education and other services to enable the security forces of these countries in the use of these technologies.

The 236 outsourcing contracts analysed by El Confidencial and porCausa show that Morocco is one of the main recipients of these products and services. Some of Madrid’s most expensive donations to Rabat coincide with moments of crisis when the Moroccan authorities relaxed migration control.

Spain employs a similar logic with a long list of African countries, including Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Niger, a country located at the crossroads of the migratory routes crossed by 90 per cent of migrants of sub-Saharan origin trying to reach Europe. Since 2015, Niger has been criminally prosecuting anyone directly or indirectly linked to migrants and restricting the movement of people within the country, a measure applauded by the European Union.

In the late 1990s, José María Aznar’s government instructed the CNI to create a network of spies and informants in Africa to monitor the movement of irregular migrants and trafficking networks. One of the CNI agents involved in the design of this spy network, mainly in Sahelian and sub-Saharan African countries, acknowledges that local authorities often use the technology supplied by Spain to persecute and repress opposition groups, activists and citizens critical of the government. The same source, who led several cells of informants for more than 15 years, claims that the Spanish authorities are aware of the dual use by some African governments of such devices and products supposedly intended to combat irregular immigration. A Guardia Civil agent with several years of experience in Senegal and Mauritania corroborates the CNI agent’s information. Both sources requested anonymity to speak in the context of this investigation.

Among the companies contracted by Spain to supply these products to African countries, Fieldsports Ltd., a hunting and sporting goods shop located in a town in northern Malta, stands out. Since 2020, this SME has invoiced more than four million euros to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through 21 contracts to supply vehicles, military uniforms, night vision goggles, drones, repeaters and telecommunications technology.

Fieldsports is one of the companies that appear in the Paradise Papers. Its director, James Fenech, is under investigation in Malta for allegedly violating the international embargo on Libya at the height of the war. According to the newspapers Malta Today and Times of Malta, Fenech allegedly supplied, among other things, semi-rigid boats that were used by pro-Gaddafi foreign mercenaries to flee Libya. In response to this investigation, Fieldsports denies favourable treatment by the Spanish government and clarifies that its director, James Fenech, is being investigated for his role in the company Sovereign Charterers Limited. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that it “carries out the relevant checks” before awarding contracts and stresses that Fieldsports “is not included in any of the databases” for the prevention of money laundering, the financing of terrorism and tax havens.

Obsessed with the southern border

Spain has a ministry for migration, but migration management is practically a monopoly of the interior ministry. Like his predecessors, Minister Marlaska and his team see migration as a problem that endangers Spain’s security. The division of functions and competences frequently leads to friction between Escrivá and Marlaska, both of whom are Socialist ministers.

The government, led by the Interior Ministry, strives to reinforce the border perimeter at any cost – especially on the southern border – which consumes 8 out of every 10 euros allocated by the central government for migration control. The figure contrasts with another reality: in Spain, 8 out of every 10 undocumented migrants come from Latin America and work in essential jobs, especially in the care sector, looking after the elderly and children. These people – most of them women – enter the country on tourist visas, mainly through Madrid and Barcelona airports. Asked about this, the Interior responded that “the idea of surrounding international airports with a land border is foolish”.

At midnight on 18 May, the borders of Ceuta and Melilla reopened after being closed for more than two years. Those who queued up to be reunited with their families were able to see some glimpses of the so-called smart border, one of the most promising businesses for the migration control industry. The border of the future is taking shape in these two Spanish enclaves. Spain is the vanguard of the European Union, which in mid-2020, in the midst of the pandemic, approved an expenditure of more than 300 million euros to implement these “smart borders” on Europe’s external perimeter.

The Interior Ministry has been allocating resources for several years and keeps a close eye on the details. This system incorporates cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology, with biometric readers, state-of-the-art cameras and even drones with which the Guardia Civil already locates and pursues migrants trying to enter irregularly. Those who attended the reopening of the Ceuta border could hear the drone of the Matrice 300 RTK drones used by the Guardia Civil in the two autonomous cities. More than 50 groups warn of the risks that the “smart border” entails for the fundamental rights of migrants and cross-border people. The Ministry of the Interior assures that the implementation of the “smart border” is a decision of the European Union, which works to “combine respect for individual rights with improved protection of European territory in the face of current threats”.

A business for all

The business that emerges from Spain’s migration policies does not only involve large infrastructures and advanced technology. It is in the most trivial and unsuspected details that small and medium-sized entrepreneurs gain their biggest market share, sometimes with questionable practices.

Albie, a company “specialising in school meals”, supplies food to several detention centres for foreigners. It is the same company that provided maintenance, cleaning and food for the Fuerteventura CIE for several years, until an investigation by porCausa and El Confidencial revealed that the centre had been empty for five years. Albie billed more than half a million euros in that time without providing any kind of service.

Following the publication of this information, the Ministry of Interior closed the Fuerteventura CIE. Since then, this same company has invoiced the National Police more than 13 million for the supply of food to other CIE, mainly in the Canary Islands. The company Alonso Hipercas, mentioned at the beginning of this special, sells to the State the food served in the CATE of Cartagena. The Guardia Civil claims that this CATE is closed and does not even have a planned opening date. Last year, Alonso Hipercas invoiced more than 35,000 euros to the Ministry of Interior for “various supplies and services” for the CATE in Cartagena. Interior awarded him this contract without a public tender. The ministry headed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska does not provide the specifications, but assures that this CATE is “completed and ready, but pending an administrative procedure by the Ministry of Defence” and affirms that these contracts “are being used in the provisional facilities set up in the port of Cartagena”.

A broken model?

“We are a country that has always defended regular and orderly migration,” Pedro Sánchez recently responded to questions about the latest tragedy at the Melilla border. On paper, Spanish migration policy aims to prevent unauthorised entries, facilitate the safe arrival of those who have permission to work and safeguard the defence of migrants’ fundamental rights. An analysis of migration management contracts reveals a model far removed from these interests, in which the management of Spanish borders is sometimes left in the hands of non-democratic governments and a small number of private actors. A group of 20 companies receives six out of every 10 euros of public funds allocated to border sealing, according to research carried out by El Confidencial and Causa based on publicly available information at the national level [see methodology].

United Nations projections indicate that in the next 30 years, the working-age population in Spain will fall to 50 per cent. Various economists, researchers, employers’ organisations and NGOs warn of the need to implement migration management policies in order, among other things, to tackle the low birth rate and the progressive ageing of Spanish society. There are currently some 500,000 undocumented non-EU nationals living in Spain, 147,000 of whom are minors. The number of migrants arriving in Spain illegally – and the number of people who die trying – continues to grow. At the same time, the government is increasing public spending on migration control, thus favouring the consolidation of the anti-immigration industry.

[The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Fomento), ACS Group, Tragsa, Red Cross, Babcock, Thales, ATOS, Inetum, Eiffage, Alonso Hipercas and Albie did not respond to any of the questions asked by Fundación porCausa and El Confidencial.]

Methodology

Who wins with Spain’s migration policies? This is the starting question of ‘Fronteras SA: la industria del control migratorio’ (Borders SA: the migration control industry). To approximate an answer, Fundación porCausa has extracted all the central government’s public procurement (Public Sector Procurement Platform and Official State Gazette) from January 2014 to April 2022. Among the contracts obtained, we filtered those that contained any of the more than 400 keywords related to the field of migration, from which we selected the 2,795 contracts obtained that make up our database. We decided to keep contracts for multiple-use products and services. For example, border scanners are used to combat irregular immigration, but also to detect smuggling or drug trafficking. We then structured the information, analysed it and created categories to get an overall picture.

The database is composed only of central government public contracts that have been published. Public contracts with a ‘confidential’ seal, as well as those that the government does not make public, are not included in this special section. Also excluded from this investigation are contracts awarded by European Union bodies, Autonomous Communities – with competences mainly in the area of reception- and city councils, as well as funds processed as subsidies -mainly used to finance services for the initial reception and integration of migrants and refugees-. Also excluded from this investigation are public budgets intended to cover fixed costs related to migration control, such as the salaries of Guardia Civil agents deployed in Ceuta and Melilla. Click here to learn more about the methodology and download the research database.

This article is the runner-up for the 2023 European Press Prize for Migration Journalism. It was originally published by El Confidencial, Fundación porCausa, Spain. The republication of this piece was kindly granted by the European Press Prize. Visit europeanpressprize.com for more excellent journalism. Distribution by Voxeurop syndication service.

The lack of international legal recognition condemns climate migration to invisibility. In Italy, a few organisations are fighting for the rights of those who abandon their home and country of origin for climate-related reasons. But only a political shift can prepare Europe for a phenomenon that is bound to grow in the years to come.

Climate change caused by human activities is aggravating poverty and political instability, intensifying conflicts over fundamental resources such as water and pushing increasing numbers of people to migrate. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), 90 per cent of refugees in the world today come from countries on the front lines of the climate emergency. Natural disasters force 21.5 million people to leave their home every year, moving both inside and outside their country of origin.

Although Western countries are responsible for most of the world’s carbon emissions, it is developing countries that pay the greatest cost of climate change; global inequalities are reflected in the climate crisis.

The Italian environmental association Legambiente reported that at least 76 per cent of migratory flows into Italy between 2017 and 2020 were connected to environmental causes. However, in addition to being a landing place for migrants, Italy is also a climate change hotspot like the rest of the Mediterranean region. According to the Italian Climate Pact Association (Euclipa), 198 Italian towns and villages were affected by disastrous climatic events between 2010 and 2018 and 340 were hit by extreme meteorological phenomena. 157 people died, and 45,000 were evacuated as a result of these events. Drought and the recent floods that hit the Emilia Romagna region are extreme situations whose occurrence is becoming increasingly frequent. The phenomenon of internal climate migration in Italy is already a reality. Several areas of the country could become uninhabitable in a few years.

And yet, the ever-growing phenomenon of climate migration is given very little importance both in Italy and internationally. Presently, no country grants those who move for environmental reasons refugee status.

The invisible climate migrant

The term “environmental refugee” appeared officially for the first time in a 1985 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Since then, various terms have been used to identify those who move for environmental reasons: climate migrants, environmental evacuees, eco-migrants, and climate refugees.

The definition of refugee given in the Geneva Convention (1951) does not include people who leave their country because of extreme environmental events, but only those who migrate because of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion”.

Accurately estimating the number of environmental refugees is not easy, partly because of the lack of a shared definition at the international level. According to the World Bank, in the next 30 years climate catastrophes will force 143 million people to leave their home. Areas that are vulnerable to droughts, such as the Sahel in Africa, and those threatened by a rise in sea level will suffer the greatest impact. Together with the Pacific islands, the latter category includes Bangladesh, the eighth most populous country in the world, whose land is on average only a few metres above sea level.

Natural disasters force 21.5 million people to leave their home every year, moving both inside and outside their country of origin.

Adil (fictitious name) is a young Bengali man who migrated to Italy after floods hit Bangladesh and India in the spring of 2022. The village he lived in was completely submerged, his house destroyed and the livestock decimated. And yet, Adil has not left Bangladesh because of an environmental disaster. “It is very rare for people to move to a foreign country because of the direct effect of the climate crisis,” said Eugenio Alfano, a lawyer specialising in immigration law and international protection who works with the project Le rotte del clima (Climate Routes).

Initially, disasters caused by climate change mainly result in internal displacement. In 2021, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre recorded 59 million forced migrants, of which 38 million were internal evacuees. Of these, only 14.4 million migrated because they were forced to flee from violence and persecution, while the remaining 23.7 million migrated due to environmental issues.

The reasons for Adil’s migration, Alfano explained, were both financial and environmental. It all began with a loan from a network of criminal loan sharks. Adil used his house as collateral to guarantee repayment of the loan. When the house was destroyed by the floods Adil, fearing repercussions, left Bangladesh. “Given that flooding is a structural phenomenon in Bangladesh, a lot of Bengali migrants do not consider themselves as climate refugees,” said Alfano.

If the migrants themselves do not associate their displacement with the climate crisis, it is because of the lack of recognition and legal protection associated with climate migration. The issue of definition has very practical repercussions: only once climate migrants are formally recognised as a specific category, forms of protection can be put into practice.

According to Veronica Dini, president of the research institute Systasis, which created Le rotte del clima, climate migration often goes unnoticed even by professionals who provide legal aid to migrants. “Lawyers are not required to obtain information from their clients about environmental issues, also because in the absence of regulation no one resorts to legal arguments connected to the climate emergency,” explains Dini.

No legal basis

Until 2018, humanitarian protection safeguarded the rights of migrants in Italy – including those who arrived for reasons connected to climate change – who could not obtain the status of refugees. In 2020, the “Security decree” promoted by then-Interior Minister Matteo Salvini introduced six-month residence permits for those who escaped natural disasters. The permit is only renewed if the disaster continues. Environmental catastrophes can occur very suddenly (earthquakes, floods) or gradually (deforestation, drought, salinization of water). The six-month permit only protects people caught in sudden disasters, thus excluding a large part of climate migrants from legal protection. Migrants, especially from countries hit by conflict due to the scarcity of natural resources such as the Sahel, South Sudan, and Syria are excluded from this type of environmental protection, which is currently the only one available in Italy.

Analysing the answers migrants gave in questionnaires and anonymous interviews on the theme of climate migration, Le rotte del clima aims to identify case studies to take to court. Migrants without a residence permit who can demonstrate that they are climate refugees could create useful precedents in the recognition of legal status. The project may pave the way for similar initiatives elsewhere in Europe.

Political vacuum

Projects with a legal approach such as Le rotte del clima may contribute to the formal recognition of climate migration. However, legal precedents alone cannot replace the lack of political vision in both Italy and Europe.

According to Angelica De Vito, a climate consultant at the United Nations, the reluctance to grant climate migrants a legal status could also depend on political calculation in countries like Italy, where governments are hostile to the phenomenon of migration.

In recent years, propaganda on an alleged “invasion” by migrants has become a common feature in the Italian public debate, and right-wing parties have exploited this narrative to increase their support. In April, Brothers of Italy’s Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida spoke of “ethnic substitution” caused by migration flows and the parallel decline in the birth rate.

In the “Cutro decree” (which takes its name from the Calabrian village where a shipwreck took place on 26 February causing the death of 94 people) the right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni focused on toughening the penalties for those who arrive in Italy illegally by sea, and on making it more difficult to remain in the country.

As for European migration policies, they lack a medium to long-term view. The recently struck Council agreement shows that deterring arrivals, enabling rapid returns and reducing so-called secondary movements within the EU are seen as the main objectives, while protection standards will be further reduced.

For now, the phenomenon of climate migration remains the prerogative of international conferences such as COPs. In November 2022 in Sharm el-Sheikh, governments agreed that developing countries that are hit hardest by climate disasters should receive funds to facilitate reconstruction after extreme meteorological events. However, details on how the new global fund will work are yet to be defined.