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For a decade, Europe has been locked in a perpetual state of crisis over migration. While the ancient meaning of crisis points to a temporary disruption from the norm, since 2015 it has transformed into an permanent feature of the European political landscape. That fateful year, around one million individuals escaped war and persecution to seek refuge in Europe. In the ensuing decade, the topic of migration has been so completely politicised that it is now hard to recall a period when it was not framed as an overwhelming emergency.

This notion of a permanent emergency does not mirror a reality where Europe is genuinely incapable of handling new arrivals. Instead, it highlights the plain fact that many parties benefit from creating a pervasive sense of crisis.

These alarmist stories fuel a profitable system of fear and have catalysed far-reaching changes to Europe's border architecture and migration policies. The continent's border security industry is experiencing a boom, with key beneficiaries including the EU's border agency, whose funding has exploded from a relatively small sum in 2014 to exceeding one billion euros today—despite repeated accusations of involvement in rights violations. Across the continent, private military and surveillance firms have secured lucrative contracts that have further hardened the area's frontiers.

The Ascendancy of the Hard Right and the Game of Copycat

Promising that the events of 2015 will not be repeated, conservative and far-right political movements are gaining strength across Europe, apparently intent on stoking anti-migrant sentiment and normalising racist "great replacement" narratives. The xenophobic fringe has grabbed its opportunity. However, the fact that Europe has grown increasingly hostile for migrants and ethnic minority groups is in large part due to the calculated opportunism of centrist parties that seek to beat the hard right at its own game.

Germany serves as 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. Pursuing an hardline anti-migration agenda, he has made statements seen by many as racist, including a recent suggestion that large-scale deportations were needed to resolve a "visible issue in urban areas". This approach of copycat politics 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 confronts a similar fate. Under huge strain from the hard-right Reform UK party, it has unveiled what it calls "the toughest asylum reforms in modern times". These draconian plans would make refugee status provisional, reduce support, separate families, and leave many in a legal purgatory for years. This tactic does not contain forces on the political right; it strengthens them. Reform UK welcomed the announcement, while extremist figures celebrated a perceived obliteration of the political mainstream.

A Spiral of Harshness and an Anti-Democratic Horizon

For the far right across Europe, the "political boon" of border panics keeps giving. A vital lesson must be restated: when you engage in a politics of cruelty to outdo those whose whole platform is founded on cruelty, defeat is inevitable. Even if governments succeed in implementing "strict" policies or lower asylum numbers, the far right will simply find other minority groups to scapegoat, demonise, and hold responsible.

This hostility shows no signs of abating. Transforming vast regions like the Sahara and the Mediterranean into areas of peril is insufficient for those who frame their struggle as a civilisational war, steeped in racial mythology and "remigration" fantasies that ultimately threaten Europe's own minority citizens.

The ideology of the far right are gathering strength, building connections globally and allowing migration to be employed as a tool for democratic erosion. Internationally, powerful voices are adopting this rhetoric, with recent strategy documents 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 Coming Decade: Hardening or Resistance?

What, then, lies ahead for Europe's fortified borders? The EU's current trajectory appears clear. With the new EU migration agreement coming into full force in 2026, another milestone in border fortification will be reached. Rather than challenging narratives of never-ending emergency, the pact essentially makes crisis into official procedure. It will enable member states to speed up border processes, extend detention, and curtail asylum rights during broadly stated "emergency circumstances" of mass arrival. Critics argue these measures are so wide-ranging that they risk becoming normalised, indefinitely weakening rights across the continent.

In a world full of reasons for people to flee—from war and genocide to economic exploitation and climate disaster—increased border security, mass deportations, and a generalised politics of cruelty will never "resolve" migration. What they accomplish is the erosion of democratic standards, widening social rifts, and amplified racist animosity.

Given that migration has become the central issue of the current anti-democratic shift, it is exactly around migration that resistance must coalesce. How we will look back on the decade from 2026 to 2035 is, ultimately, up to us. Carrying out rescue operations in the Mediterranean, blocking immigration raids and deportation flights, and reasserting cities as spaces of diversity and mutual support—these are all vitally important actions that defend our fellow human beings and challenge the authoritarian forces expanding around us.