The Real Problem With Europe’s Migration Politics

Last week’s tragic events in Ceuta – where at least 88 people died trying to reach the Spanish exclave in North Africa – brutally underscored the lengths to which some will go to get to Europe. They also highlighted just how divorced from reality Europe’s approach to migration has become.

Italy reintroduced border controls for travellers arriving from Spain and declared a one-month “suspension” of the Schengen free-movement area. Denmark and Finland similarly suggested that Spain should be expelled from Schengen altogether. And 22 EU leaders, spearheaded by Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, signed an open letter underlining their “readiness to take any necessary measures” to thwart onward migration to mainland Europe.

None of these leaders seemed to know – or care – that Ceuta is effectively already outside the Schengen area: passport and visa checks were, and still are, carried out for all people departing the territory. Calling for Schengen’s suspension, in other words, made about as much sense as demanding that Ceuta be physically moved to South Africa.

Moreover, Ceuta’s tiny size – at just under twenty square kilometres, it is roughly one-eighth the size of Brussels – and the EU’s close ties to Morocco (which borders the exclave) meant that the vast majority of the 80,000 or so people who swam, climbed, or crawled into the territory were highly likely to be sent back. Indeed, less than 48 hours later, most of them had.

What, then, explains Europe’s hysterical response?

Partly, it is political point-scoring: the episode presented the perfect opportunity for Meloni, Frederiksen, and other immigrant-bashing leaders to castigate Spanish premier Pedro Sánchez’s migrant-friendly policies.

Yet it also appears to reflect a worrying ignorance about how migration actually works.

Underscoring this point, the letter signed by Meloni, Frederiksen & co. makes no mention whatsoever of one of the principal causes of the crisis, confirmed by copious on-the-ground reporting by The New York Times, Reuters, and other media outlets: the economic destitution suffered by many, particularly young people, in Morocco, where a third of 15- to 24-year-olds are unemployed and per capita GDP is less than one-eighth that of Spain’s.

Tellingly, in her own (non-public) letter to Sánchez, Ursula von der Leyen overwhelmingly focused on addressing the symptoms, rather than the underlying sources, of migratory flows (e.g., bolstering the EU’s external borders, preventing smuggling, and “reinforcing returns”).

In fact, the letter made just a single, fleeting reference to the need to improve third countries’ economic prospects: Europe, the European Commission chief wrote, must “move beyond migration management so that we can help create the right opportunities for people at home”.

Even more tellingly, many news outlets that reported on the letter didn’t bother mentioning this part of it at all. Instead, they cited von der Leyen’s more nebulous suggestion that the EU “improve” (note: not increase) its “financial support” for Morocco.

Policymakers’ focus on migration’s symptoms, it seems, may partly be a symptom of something else – my own profession’s similarly regrettable tendency to focus on symptoms.

Europe’s biggest mistake

Unfortunately, Europe’s current actions are only making future Ceuta-like episodes more likely.

Wealthy nations – including European ones – have gutted their foreign aid budgets in recent years, as geopolitical turmoil spurs them to prioritise spending on defence and security over development assistance.

According to the OECD, a group of mostly rich countries, in 2025 wealthy nations slashed development aid by a record 23.1% to $174.3 billion. US aid cuts drove three-quarters of the decrease, but significant reductions were also seen across much of Europe, with Germany, France, and the EU institutions all lowering aid budgets by at least 10%.

Net development assistance to Morocco has suffered particularly badly, shrinking from $2.83 billion in 2017 to $1.03 billion in 2024 – a decline of nearly two-thirds.

As Alexander De Croo, the United Nations’ development chief and a former Belgian prime minister, has warned, such cuts inevitably increase the likelihood of future migratory crises, especially at a time when climate change and armed conflicts are already causing many in the Global South to head north.

“A big part of stability in the world is economic opportunity, and creating an environment where countries can have economic growth, can have job creation, can have inclusive societies that will buffer migration pressure,” De Croo told me last month. “So I think the biggest mistake you can make as Europeans is to say, ‘Well, we’re going to turn our back on the rest of the world.’”

An inevitable trilemma

But boosting development aid is no panacea.

After all, the events in Ceuta also appear to have been sparked by other factors, namely social media misinformation campaigns and political disagreements between Rabat and Madrid. Furthermore, the largest migration into the EU in recent history – the millions of Ukrainians who poured into the bloc following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – is unlikely to have been prevented by Brussels showering development aid on Moscow.

This suggests that Europe’s attitude to migration requires an even more radical overhaul. Two points are especially worth emphasising.

First, we should recognise the obvious: leaders’ increasingly hostile attitude to immigrants has failed to stem, and probably has strengthened, right-wing populism across Europe.

Germany’s AfD, for instance, is now the country’s most popular party and is threatening to win an outright majority in state elections in September. France is on the verge of electing a far-right president. And Italy, lest we forget, already has a Mussolini-praising premier (Meloni) who has never fully renounced her party’s neo-fascist heritage. (Frederiksen, whose anti-migrant policies are often touted as an example for other centrists to follow, was also considerably weakened at this year’s Danish parliamentary elections. The far right, by contrast, tripled its vote share.)

The second, related point is to consider the extent to which the EU’s overwhelming focus on migration may have diverted precious political attention from other, more pressing concerns.

Do voters really care more about creating “return hubs” than they do about, say, soaring energy or food prices? Should deporting Syrian nationals really be a priority at a time when Germany is haemorrhaging manufacturing jobs? And is strengthening the EU’s borders really a more effective way of fighting populist extremism than boosting real wages?

These questions are not academic. In fact, at some point in the not-too-distant future, demographic reality will compel EU policymakers to wrestle with them.

As Mario Draghi points out in his landmark report on the EU economy, declining birth rates mean that the bloc “is entering the first period in its recent history in which growth will not be supported by rising populations”.

As he also notes, the EU’s projected loss of 2 million workers each year from 2040 could be offset with higher productivity growth. But this will require it to get its economic house in order – something that the bloc’s migration-fixated leaders seem constitutionally incapable of doing.

In the absence of higher productivity, however, there are only two feasible alternatives: higher rates of immigration or permanent economic stagnation.

Sadly, recent events suggest Europe will eventually opt for the latter. Let’s hope it doesn’t.

Originally published on EurActiv