A new wind is blowing in the European Union. Eight years after German Chancellor Angela Merkel proudly proclaimed “Wir schaffen das” (“We can manage”), as part of an optimistic yet pragmatic belief in her nation’s ability to accommodate 1 million migrants and asylum seekers that year, the bloc’s attitudes have soured. Nationalism and opposition to immigration are on the rise amid a level of arrivals unseen since the 2015-16 migration and refugee crisis. The most recent example occurred in the Netherlands last week, where the anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV) led by right-wing firebrand Geert Wilders won a plurality of seats in parliamentary elections. Immigration restrictions were central to the campaign, and Wilders has called for a “Nexit” referendum to allow his country to leave the European Union. A government still needs to be formed, and Wilders may not end up as his country’s new leader, but his party’s advances have been undeniable. Populist outsiders have not yet been quite as successful in Germany, where Merkel’s boosterism now seems a distant memory. But the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been remarkably ascendant in state elections this year. In response, Merkel’s successor, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has taken a notably more restrictive tone, calling for “large-scale” deportations of unauthorized migrants and consideration of reforms to process asylum applicants abroad. Elsewhere, Finland’s far-right Finns Party has earned a spot in a coalition government, and Austria’s Freedom Party (separate from Wilders’s group in the Netherlands) is poised to make major gains in federal elections next year. Giorgia Meloni was elected prime minister of Italy just over one year ago in part because of her hard line on immigration—a stance now manifesting in an agreement to build detention centers in Albania to house migrants reaching Italy’s shores. Earlier in 2022, Marine Le Pen advanced to the second round in France’s presidential elections, and her National Rally remains among the most popular. The right-ward tilt in Europe is in part a response to the growing numbers of asylum seekers and other migrants crossing the Mediterranean, which this year were at the highest since 2016. It also stems from concern about support for Ukraine amid the Russian invasion and anxiety about the broader European integration project, among other factors. True, the change is not entirely uniform. Voters in Poland this year kicked out the right-wing Law and Justice Party, and Spain’s Vox party has failed to make sizable new inroads. But the trend is clear. “A new Europe is possible,” cheered Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the immigration-skeptic League, when results from the Dutch elections emerged. Indeed, it may already be here. Best regards, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
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