European governments are beginning to panic about migration again. So far this year there have been nearly 120,000 “irregular” arrivals. Most of these people travelled through Tunisia and Libya and on to Italy. It is the highest number since 2017, the year after the EU – fearing a populist backlash – did a morally questionable deal with Turkey, channelling €6bn to Ankara in exchange for Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s agreement to prevent 3.5 million refugees, most of them displaced by the war in Syria, from reaching EU territory.
This time, leaders in some countries, like Austria and Germany, fear another nationalist backlash. The far-right Freedom party is leading opinion polls in Austria and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland’s support has been buoyant in German local elections. Italy is already governed by the anti-immigrant hard right, although as the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, who came to power last year promising to cut the migrant flow is finding, it is one thing to call for fanciful naval blockades when in opposition, another to manage the issue when in power.
