EU Immigration Policy: Far-Right Surge & Dublin Reform

Immigration has been the single most potent issue driving far-right gains across Europe since the 2015 migration crisis. The 2024 European Parliament elections confirmed this trend: the ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists, led by Italy’s Giorgia Meloni) and Patriots for Europe groups combined to hold roughly 162 seats in the 720-seat Parliament, a significant increase from 2019. In member states, far-right or nationalist parties now lead governments in Italy and Hungary, participate in governing coalitions in Finland and the Netherlands, and are the leading opposition forces in France, Germany, Sweden, and Austria. The migration issue is the shared tissue connecting these parties across otherwise very different political cultures.

The EU’s institutional response has been the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, agreed in April 2024 after years of failed negotiations. The Pact introduces a “mandatory solidarity mechanism”: member states that refuse to accept relocated asylum seekers must instead pay €20,000 per person into an EU migration fund. It also speeds up border procedures, allowing faster returns for applicants deemed to have low chances of success. Critics from the left argue the Pact legitimises detention at the border and undermines asylum rights; critics from the right — particularly Hungary and Poland — argue it still forces member states to accept migrants against their will. The Pact’s implementation is expected to run through 2026.

Italy under Meloni has emerged as the most influential single actor reshaping the EU’s migration external policy. Her government negotiated the Albania deal, under which migrants intercepted in international waters by Italian vessels are transferred to processing centers in Albania rather than Italian soil. Though Italian courts have repeatedly blocked deportations under the scheme on human rights grounds, the political model has been endorsed by the European Commission as a template for “third country processing.” Similar arrangements are being explored by Germany and the United Kingdom. The Frontex agency, meanwhile, has grown from a small coordination unit into a standing border corps of 10,000 officers with its own budget, assets, and operational authority — a development that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.