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Ten years ago marked the “summer of migration”, a series of major population movements towards the European Union. In the 2015 “crisis” alone, over a million people entered the EU by irregular means. Most were Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis.
In 2025, more than 95,000 people took the road of exile and reached the EU irregularly.
Over 32,000 people have died trying to reach Europe's borders via the Mediterranean since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.
As the years have passed, 2015’s “summer of migration” has become the new reality: that event was in fact just one episode in a long series. Everywhere borders have been under pressure: between Poland and Belarus in 2021; between Russia and Finland; between Russia and the Baltic states. There has been the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and, of course, the war in Ukraine. All these events bear witness to the fact that, in a relentlessly unstable world imperilled by global warming, migration is – and will remain in the future – inevitable.
This inability to grapple with the present and the future is compounded by an inability to understand the past. In 2015, we remember Chancellor Angela Merkel's historic speech, “Wir schaffen das!” (“We'll manage!”). It signaled Germany's willingness to take on the unprecedented challenge posed by the arrival of so many migrants. We remember the outpouring of sympathy for exiles sparked by the photo of Aylan Kurdi, a Kurdish-Syrian child found dead on a beach in Turkey.
More easily forgotten are the dysfunctions in receiving those migrants, which became apparent in the subsequent years: border patrols between Northern Macedonia and Greece; plans to close Germany's borders; disputes between member states over how to deal with asylum seekers; the controversial migration agreement between the EU and Turkey, and so on.
Then there was the temporary reintroduction of controls at internal EU borders, and the rampant human-rights violations at the external borders. Faced with an unprecedented crisis, European solidarity didn't last long. If Angela Merkel was able to face up to the crisis, it was because she had the political capital necessary to do so. Not all the other EU countries’ leaders were in the same situation.
New deal
In the meantime, Europe and its countries have adapted to the new reality. One of the most important measures of Matteo Salvini, Italy's interior minister in 2018-19, was the abolition of humanitarian protection status. This had allowed migrants unqualified for refugee status to stay in Italy. The system had protected around 40% of asylum seekers.
Its disappearance has left many people with no legal means of remaining in Italy, opening the door to deportations. The Salvini decrees also accelerated asylum procedures, extended police powers and allowed for easier detention of migrants.
The clampdown in Italy echoes a more global trend. To manage migratory movements, there have been agreements between the EU and countries such as Mauritania, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya – some of which are known for human rights violations on their soil. Europe seems to want to prevent migrants arriving, no matter the consequences. Supranational projects such as the creation of migrant detention centres outside the EU, and national initiatives such as Poland’s suspension of the right to asylum, are further evidence of this commitment to closure.
“Today, the narrative of European leaders on migration is a far cry from Angela Merkel's rhetoric of 2015”, says Silvia Carta, advocacy officer for an organization defending the rights of undocumented migrants. “The dominant narrative at the moment presents migration and migrants as a problem, to be solved essentially with more barriers to entry into Europe and more deportations.” The same goes for migrant smuggling. This is understood not as a consequence of the restrictive policies in place, she says, but rather as a justification for criminalizing migrants and the groups that help them.
For Silvia Carta, this political climate is leading more and more people “into irregularity and legal limbo, deprived of their fundamental rights and exposed to precariousness, homelessness, exploitation and prolonged detention.”
European solidarity is not totally dead, however. In 2022, Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered massive population displacements, prompting the EU to activate the Temporary Protection Directive. This granted exiled Ukrainians immediate legal residence and access to work, education and healthcare.
An anti-immigration international?
The last decade has also seen the rise of European far-right parties, driven by anti-immigration rhetoric.
In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has grown in popularity over the last ten years to become the country's second-largest force (4.7% of the vote in the 2013 federal elections, rising to 20.8% in 2025).
A similar situation prevails in France, where the Rassemblement National, which didn't even have a seat in the National Assembly twenty years ago, received 28.5% of the vote in the last legislative elections. It is now the country's leading party.
Perhaps even more striking is the example of Fratelli d'Italia, the party of Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Back in 2013, the Fratelli had won only nine seats out of 630 in parliamentary elections (2% of the vote).
This rise of right-wing extremism goes hand in hand with a shift in the political landscape as a whole when it comes to migration. Driven by the need to appeal to voters who have been won over by reactionary arguments, and the imperative simply to exist in a world where immigration plays a central role in politics, even centrist and leftist parties are adopting more restrictive positions on migration and asylum. From Sahra Wagenknecht, former figurehead of Germany's left-wing Die Linke party to Keir Starmer’s UK Labour Party to the Danish Social Democrats' anti-immigration laws: recent history abounds with centre-left politicians seeking to capitalize on the fight against immigration – with varying degrees of success.
“At European level, we already saw this shift in 2024 when the Pact on Asylum and Migration was adopted with the votes of the European Socialist group, despite appeals against it by civil society”, notes Silvia Carta. “However, the data shows that following this rhetoric only strengthens the far right, rather than weakening it.”
In Carta's view, the situation reveals a political vacuum. “What's missing are leaders [...] who can show how migration and migrants are being used as scapegoats to divide the electorate and distract them from the growing failings of the welfare state and the economic, social and racial inequalities in our societies.”
Integration: an ongoing struggle
For people from a migrant background, integration remains a challenge. A Eurobarometer survey published in 2023, based on more than 25,000 respondents across the EU, reveals that more than half of those questioned feel that there is widespread discrimination in their country, notably on the basis of skin colour or ethnic origin.
In some countries there has been progress in terms of integrating new arrivals into the labour market. However, language barriers, housing costs and limited access to public services have made the process more complex than it needs to be. Public debate oscillates between solidarity, the need to counter the ageing of the population through migration, and worries about reception capacity.
In France, a study published in 2022 by the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (Ifri) shows that, despite active job-seeking, refugees in France are often faced with insecure contracts and poor career prospects. They are over-represented in low-wage sectors such as construction, hotels and catering.
Difficulties in accessing housing and education have also been noted elsewhere in Europe.
Over the past ten years, an idea has taken hold in many countries and across the political divide: “Fortress Europe” is facing a major peril and must be defended at all costs. Whether during their journey or once they have settled, displaced persons continue to face the consequences of migration policies justified by the supposed “crisis”. The “summer of migration” never ended. It has become a permanent part of our lives.
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