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For a decade, Europe has been locked in a seemingly endless state of migration emergency. While the ancient meaning of crisis signifies a temporary disruption from the norm, since 2015 it has become an enduring feature of the European political landscape. That pivotal year, around one million individuals fled war and persecution to seek refuge in Europe. In the years that followed, the topic of migration has been so thoroughly weaponised that it is now difficult to recall a period when it was not framed as an existential crisis.

This idea of a permanent emergency does not reflect a reality where Europe is truly unable of handling new arrivals. Instead, it highlights the plain fact that numerous entities benefit from manufacturing a constant feeling of crisis.

These alarmist stories fuel a profitable system of fear and have driven far-reaching changes to Europe's frontier systems and migration policies. The European border-industrial complex is flourishing, with major profiteers including the EU's border agency, whose funding has exploded from a modest sum in 2014 to exceeding one billion euros today—despite frequent accusations of complicity with human rights abuses. Throughout Europe, private defence and security firms have secured lucrative contracts that have further militarised the region's frontiers.

The Ascendancy of the Hard Right and the Politics of Copycat

Promising that the events of 2015 will not be repeated, right-wing and extremist political movements are gaining strength across Europe, apparently intent on whipping up anti-migrant sentiment and normalising racist "great replacement" narratives. The xenophobic fringe has seized its opportunity. However, the fact that Europe has grown increasingly hostile for migrants and racialised minorities is largely due to the dangerous cynicism of mainstream parties that seek to outflank the far right at its own game.

Germany provides a paradigmatic case. Capitalising on the 2015 "refugee crisis", the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) first won seats in the federal parliament in 2017. Since then, as opposition leader and later as chancellor, the CDU's Friedrich Merz has steered sharply to the right. Championing an hardline anti-migration agenda, he has made statements widely viewed as discriminatory, including a recent suggestion that mass removals were needed to address a "visible issue in urban areas". This strategy of adopting rival rhetoric has had the opposite effect, with the AfD's poll numbers rising dramatically to now rival Merz's own party.

In the UK, the sitting Labour government faces a similar fate. Under immense pressure from the hard-right Reform UK party, it has announced what it calls "the toughest asylum reforms in modern times". These draconian plans would make refugee status temporary, reduce support, separate families, and leave many in a state of limbo for years. This tactic does not contain forces on the political right; it emboldens them. Reform UK praised the announcement, while extremist figures celebrated a perceived obliteration of the political mainstream.

A Spiral of Cruelty and an Authoritarian Future

For the hard right across Europe, the "political boon" of migration crises keeps giving. A critical lesson must be reiterated: when you engage in a politics of cruelty to outdo those whose entire agenda is built on cruelty, failure is inevitable. Even if governments manage in enacting "tough" policies or lower asylum numbers, the far right will simply find other racial minorities to target, demonise, and hold responsible.

This hostility shows no signs of diminishing. Transforming vast regions like the Sahara and the Mediterranean into death zones is insufficient for those who frame their struggle as a cultural war, rooted in ethnic myths and "repatriation" fantasies that in the end threaten Europe's own minority citizens.

The ideas of the far right are gathering strength, forging alliances globally and enabling migration to be employed as a tool for democratic erosion. Internationally, powerful voices are echoing this rhetoric, with recent policy papers from a previous American government calling to end the "age of large-scale movement" and to oppose Europe's "civilizational erasure". Such statements are celebrated as wins by far-right parties within Europe.

The Path Ahead: Fortification or Resistance?

What, then, lies ahead for fortress Europe? The EU's current trajectory appears clear. With the new pact on migration and asylum taking full effect in 2026, another milestone in border fortification will be reached. Rather than countering narratives of never-ending emergency, the pact effectively turns crisis into standard policy. It will enable member states to speed up border processes, extend detention, and limit asylum rights during vaguely defined "exceptional situations" of mass arrival. Critics argue these provisions are so broad that they risk becoming normalised, permanently weakening rights across the continent.

In a world full of reasons for people to flee—from war and genocide to capitalist extraction and climate disaster—increased border security, mass deportations, and a widespread approach of cruelty will never "solve" migration. What they accomplish is the decay of democratic norms, deeper social rifts, and increased racist animosity.

Given that migration has become the central issue of the current anti-democratic shift, it is exactly around migration that opposition must form. How we will look back on the decade from 2026 to 2035 is, in the end, our collective choice. Performing rescue operations in the Mediterranean, disrupting immigration raids and deportation flights, and reclaiming cities as spaces of diversity and mutual support—these are all urgently needed actions that defend our fellow people and confront the authoritarian forces growing around us.