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‘Shift to the right’: How European nations are tightening migration policies

The success of far-right parties in elections in key European countries is prompting even centrist and left-wing governments to tighten policies on migration, creating cracks in unity and sparking concern among activists.

Published: 19 September 2024 17:38 CEST

'Shift to the right': How European nations are tightening migration policies

European Interior Ministers and representatives of the Western Balkan states meet in Berlin - The meeting is part of the "Berlin Process" platform and is expected to focus on internal security and irregular migration. (Photo by Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP)

With the German far right coming out on top in two state elections earlier this month, the socialist-led national Berlin government has reimposed border controls on Western frontiers that are supposed to see freedom of movement in the European Union’s Schengen zone.

The Netherlands government, which includes the party of Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, announced Wednesday that it had requested from Brussels an opt-out from EU rules on asylum, with Prime Minister Dick Schoof declaring that there was an asylum “crisis”.

Meanwhile, new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the left-wing Labour Party paid a visit to Rome for talks with Italian counterpart Georgia Meloni, whose party has neo-fascist roots, to discuss the strategies used by Italy in seeking to reduce migration.

Far-right parties performed strongly in June European elections, coming out on top in France, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to call snap elections which resulted in right-winger Michel Barnier, who has previously called for a moratorium on migration, being named prime minister.

We are witnessing the “continuation of a rightward shift in migration policies in the European Union,” said Jerome Vignon, migration advisor at the Jacques Delors Institute think-tank.

It reflected the rise of far-right parties in the European elections in June, and more recently in the two regional elections in Germany, he said, referring to a “quite clearly protectionist and conservative trend”.

Strong message

“Anti-immigration positions that were previously the preserve of the extreme right are now contaminating centre-right parties, even centre-left parties like the Social Democrats” in Germany, added Florian Trauner, a migration specialist at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Dutch-speaking university in Brussels.

While the Labour government in London has ditched its right-wing Conservative predecessor administration’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, there is clearly interest in a deal Italy has struck with Albania to detain and process migrants there.

Within the European Union, Cyprus has suspended the processing of asylum applications from Syrian applicants, while laws have appeared authorising pushbacks at the border in Finland and Lithuania.

Under the pretext of dealing with “emergency” or “crisis” situations, the list of exemptions and deviations from the common rules defined by the European Union continues to grow.

All this flies in the face of the new EU migration pact, agreed only in May and coming into force in 2026.

In the wake of deadly attacks in Mannheim and most recently Solingen blamed on radical Islamists, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government also expelled 28 Afghans back to their home country for the first time since the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

Such gestures from Germany are all the more symbolic given how the country since World War II has tried to turn itself into a model of integration, taking in a million refugees, mainly Syrians in 2015-2016 and then more than a million Ukrainian exiles since the Russian invasion.

Germany is sending a “strong message” to its own public as well as to its European partners, said Trauner.

The migratory pressure “remains significant” with more than 500,000 asylum applications registered in the European Union for the first six months of the year, he said.

‘Climate on impunity’

Germany, which received about a quarter of them alone, criticises the countries of southern Europe for allowing migrants to circulate without processing their asylum applications, but southern states denounce a lack of solidarity of the rest of Europe.

The moves by Germany were condemned by EU allies including Greece and Poland, but Scholz received the perhaps unwelcome accolade of praise from Hungarian right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Moscow’s closest friend in the European Union, when he declared “welcome to the club”.

The EU Commission’s failure to hold countries to account “only fosters a climate of impunity where unilateral migration policies and practices can proliferate,” said Adriana Tidona, Amnesty International’s Migration Researcher.

But behind the rhetoric, all European states are also aware of the crucial role played by migrants in keeping sectors going including transport and healthcare, as well as the importance of attracting skilled labour.

“Behind the symbolic speeches, European leaders, particularly German ones, remain pragmatic: border controls are targeted,” said Sophie Meiners, a migration researcher with the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Even Meloni’s government has allowed the entry into Italy of 452,000 foreign workers for the period 2023-2025.

“In parallel to this kind of new restrictive measures, they know they need to address skilled labour needs,” she said.

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Could Germany's dual nationality law be reversed?

In an article assessing Germany’s latest migration figures this week, Die Zeit raised a pertinent question: “What is actually out of control here,” asked journalist Mark Schieritz. “The migration, or the debate?”

While the number of asylum applications has been sinking dramatically this year – along with the number of so-called economic migrants – the discussion around migration has been building to a fever pitch.

In response to huge gains by the far-right AfD in both EU and eastern state elections, the government immediately sprung into action, extending controversial checks along all nine of Germany’s foreign borders.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) declared his intention to carry out “deportations on a grand scale” as mainstream parties met for a migration summit that quickly collapsed in disagreement.

At the same time, anti-migrant rhetoric has been ramping up, causing Deutschlandfunk to draw parallels with the early 1990s, when Germany saw a spate attacks against both refugees and foreigners who had been settled in the country for decades.

All of this feels very far removed from the Germany that has been desperate to court skilled foreigner workers over the past year, and that has fought to overturn a decades-long ban on dual nationality – which finally happened in June.

But it has caused some to wonder if the tide could be shifting, and if hard-won rights like dual nationality could be set to go out of the window. Here’s where things stand at present.

Threats from the CDU

The biggest threat to the dual nationality law arguably comes from the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) parties, who are long-standing opponents of the bill.

Shortly after the new citizenship law entered into force back in June, immigration spokesperson Alexander Throm told DPA that the parties intended to scrap it.

“The CDU and CSU will reverse this unsuccessful reform,” he said. “Dual citizenship must remain the exception and be limited to countries that share our values.”

CDU politician Alexander Throm speaks in a debate in the German Bundestag

CDU politician Alexander Throm speaks in a debate in the German Bundestag. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Christoph Soeder

But is this all hot air from a party that has vehemently campaigned against dual nationality for years on end? In the opinion of most political experts, the answer is yes.

“The CDU’s announcement that they would abolish the authorisation of dual citizenship is a desperate attempt to react to the growth of the AfD,” Nils Diederich, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, told The Local.

However, the party is unlikely to have the numbers in parliament to do so – even if they win the next election.

That’s because Germany’s system tends to rely on coalition governments, and every single one of the CDU and CSU’s viable coalition partners – the Greens, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Free Democrats (FDP) – supports dual nationality.

This was backed up by Greens immigration expert Filiz Polat, who told The Local: “The CDU/CSU is completely isolated with its announcement that it will revoke the citizenship law in the event of a change of government.”

Furthermore, the CDU and CSU are highly unlikely to ever have the numbers in the Bundesrat to change the law. The upper house of parliament is comprised of state coalition governments that all need to agree in order to vote in favour of legislation.

With the exception of Bavaria, where the CSU governs alongside the Free Voters, or Freier Wähler, party, every single state coalition the CDU is part of involves some combination of of the Greens, SPD and FDP. As the parties who worked on and ultimately passed this law, they are unlikely to agree to overturn it.

What about the far-right AfD?

Many foreigners in Germany are understandably worried about the rise of the extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, who seem to be going from strength to strength lately.

In Bundestag debates on the new citizenship law, the AfD spoke out vehemently against the changes – a stance that is reiterated in the party’s Grundsatzprogramm, or key policy programme.

“The AfD rejects the ‘double passport’, i.e. the acquisition of German citizenship with the simultaneous continuation or acquisition of another citizenship,” the party writes. “Although this does not rule out well-founded special cases.”

In addition, they say, the requirements for naturalisation must be significantly increased.

A car drives past a billboard displaying an election campaign poster for Alternative for Germany (AfD) with the lettering 'The east is doing it - class in German' in Altenburg, eastern Germany on August 20th

A car drives past a billboard displaying an election campaign poster for Alternative for Germany (AfD) with the lettering ‘The east is doing it – class in German’ in Altenburg, eastern Germany on August 20th. Photo by JENS SCHLUETER / AFP

In spite of their recent successes in eastern states, however, the far-right party is still a long way away from seizing power in Germany on a national level (or even at the state level).

That’s primarily because all the major parties – including the CDU – have what’s known as a Brandmauer, or firewall, in place, that prevents them from formally cooperating with the AfD.

So, even if the CDU and CSU parties technically have the numbers to enter a coalition with the AfD after next year’s federal elections, the party’s constitution explicitly forbids them from doing so.

Any informal agreement – such as a pact to overturn the dual nationality law, for example – would also be politically toxic, and would almost inevitably split the party.

Where does the government stand?

Currently, the so-called traffic light coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP – named after the parties’ three colours – is engaged in something of a balancing act.

While the rhetoric around migration has taken on a much more combative tone, the coalition has set a clear dividing line between legal skilled migration and uncontrolled, irregular migration.

In a fiery speech in the Bundestag on September 11th, Scholz emphasised Germany’s desperate need for migration to combat current labour shortages.

“There is no country in the world with a shrinking labour force that has economic growth,” he said. “That is the truth that we are confronted with.”

The chancellor also noted that Germany’s constitution mandates the protection of people who face danger and persecution. In other words: asylum seekers.

“Openness to the world is therefore necessary,” he explained. “But cosmopolitanism does not mean that anyone who wants to can come. We must be able to choose who comes to Germany.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Bundestag

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) gives an impassioned speech during the general debate on the budget on September 11th, 2024. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Kay Nietfeld

According to political scientist Diederich, this cuts to the heart of the current issue.

“The authorisation of multiple citizenship has little to do with unregulated immigration,” he told The Local. “Naturalisation is granted to people who have been living legally in Germany for several years and who have successfully integrated into German society.”

On the other hand, Diederich said, the fear of “foreign infiltration” through unchecked, irregular and unwanted migration is being fuelled for political purposes.

“It’s not only the AfD doing this,” he added.

At present, the government seems laser-focused on dividing their pro-migration policies – like the recent skilled worker law and citizenship reform – from the need to quell irregular migration.

For foreigners here legally, this means that routes to German citizenship – and indeed, dual nationality – are set to remain in place for the forseeable future.

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