The 2015 European migrant crisis left an indelible scar on how Europe deals with migration. It has become so ingrained in daily politics across the continent that it now forms a very real threat to not only the rights-based legal structures of liberal democracies, but also the founding principles of the European Union.
One of the main outcomes of the Syrian war was the creation of the world’s largest displaced population at the time, until it was surpassed by the Sudanese conflict in 2023. The Syrian war led to an estimated 1.2 million new asylum applicants across Europe, setting the stage on which policy on migration would be built moving forward. A direct outcome of migration-focused policy has been the spate of externalization deals that the EU has established with key strategic states in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Extending border control measures to neighboring states to control who migrates to the continent is only part of the equation; equally problematic since 2015 has been the increasing attempts to narrow the legal rights afforded to those seeking asylum. In March 2025, the European Commission tabled a proposal to adjust the 2008 Return Directive which would establish a framework for states to make bilateral agreements with third countries to deport migrants. The fact this proposal was rejected by the European Commission in 2018 highlights the added political pressure that now exists, especially since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Even prior to the fall of Assad, European leaders were increasingly putting public pressure for Syrian refugees to return.
Those fighting to provide a modicum of protection for displaced people from the MENA region have a long fight ahead
The policies and discourse since 2015 have been designed to dissuade asylum seekers from attempting to cross from MENA states, attempting to establish a “Fortress Europe.” The data collected in 2024 appear to underline that the approach led to irregular border crossings dropping by 38 percent in 2024. However, the process of achieving this downturn through externalization has, as TIMEP has pointed out, only imperiled those most vulnerable. Crucially, those fighting to provide a modicum of protection for displaced people from the MENA region have a long fight ahead, one that looks even more difficult to win now than it did in 2015. Where we go from here to address it requires a chart of how we got to this moment.
Pulling up the bridge
In 2015, two thirds of all asylum applications to Europe were to Germany, Hungary, Sweden, and Austria. At the time the ‘crisis’ would embolden right-wing parties across the continent to increase their anti-migration rhetoric and target the EU as being complicit in the failure to address the problem, seen infamously in the campaign for Brexit. “Taking back control” of borders to stave off migrants became the key issue that fueled the UK’s exit from the common market. It is important to note that the character of anti-migration discourse shifted noticeably in the Brexit campaign, with a bigger focus on migrants stemming from MENA and African states, considering them more undesirable.
The EU was increasingly forced to respond, which eventually led to a dangerous precedent being set with the offshoring of the EU’s border management to third countries through the 2016 EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan. Amnesty International criticized the deal, labeling it a means of “horse trading” with the lives of those most vulnerable, and most importantly created an atmosphere of acceptable hostility for those forcibly displaced.
Following the 2016 deal, the migrant crisis tailed off and the number of applicants dropped. Right-wing parties who had kept migration as a key policy area suffered electorally, losing ground in places that had accepted large amounts of migrants like Germany. However, a 2023 surge in asylum applications, up 18 percent from 2022, became a helpful boon for right-wing parties moving into 2024, rocketing to the top of their programs for government.
The 2023 spike in month-to-month migrations from North African states invigorated right-wing parties in Europe, provoking the EU’s repeated use of externalization deals. As in 2016, the EU and individual European states created agreements that ostensibly provide material support, particularly to security institutions, in third countries to bolster their effectiveness in policing borders. In the aftermath of the EU and Italy’s deal with Tunisia in 2023, the number of migrants originating from Tunisia dropped by 42 percent.
Making separate deals in 2023 and 2024 with Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Lebanon, the EU has once again applied a policy of expediency to the issue that not only erodes human rights norms around migration, but completely torpedoes them
Making separate deals in 2023 and 2024 with Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Lebanon, the EU has once again applied a policy of expediency to the issue that not only erodes human rights norms around migration, but completely torpedoes them. This is evident in how the EU’s partner states have responded to migrants on their shores with alarmingly regular reports of widespread abuse including, forced evictions, torture, and refoulement. The fact that the security forces carrying out these abuses are now being funded by the EU has seemingly not paused these kinds of horrors faced by migrants, like the rapes by the Tunisian National Guard, discovery of a mass grave of migrants in Libya, and credible reports of collusion between smugglers and Libyan security forces.
By entering into agreements with no oversight mechanisms where abuse can carry on without censure, the EU has sacrificed the treatment of migrants on the altar of appeasement to the current wave of populist right-wing European parties who have raised their voices in response to the increase in migration.
Relief or respite?
These externalization policies are a direct consequence of the growing anti-migrant rhetoric that has grown across Europe, resulting in more far-right representatives being elected than ever before in the European Parliament in June 2024. Perhaps most worryingly is that not only has the discourse hardened on asylum rights, but the policies as well, such as the pausing of asylum applications from Syrian refugees as soon as the Assad regime fell.
Politicians that have used anti-immigration platforms still see the utility of centering the issue at the heart of their politics, as the recent bi-election win in the United Kingdom for the Nigel Farage-led Reform UK party indicates. Reform and its policies are tailor-made for the current sentiment one year after the mass anti-immigration violence that gripped several of the country’s cities in July 2024.
Policy priority?
The clutching to migration as the cause célèbre may have appeared to pay dividends for the right-wing moving forward, but ascertaining to what degree wider citizens care about the issue is difficult considering the contextual differences in each country. The sentiment is not uniform inside or outside the EU.
An example of how sentiments can change is Switzerland, which previously accepted 250,000 Kosovans in 1999 in response to the Balkan conflict and was up until 2022 considered one of the most accommodating states. However, after accepting 75,000 asylum applicants amid Ukraine-Russia conflict, the 2023 national election underlined the growing negative views on migration, to the point that the government approved of a scheme to deport failed asylum seekers to a third country in Africa, similar to the UK’s failed Rwanda policy.
Now that the European Commission has tabled its new migration policy, breaking the seal of previously rejected policies, what should the pathway forward be? Unfortunately, considering the consolidation of right-wing parties, who will continue to push anti-immigration rhetoric, externalization deals like that with Jordan are only going to become more and more common. The states playing the role of offshore border patrol have increased the securitization of refugees, using the aid provided by the EU to immiserate vulnerable migrants in the country.
Instead of being preoccupied with the pressure from far-right parties on migration, what is needed is bold, clear messaging that affirms Europe’s commitment to protecting those vulnerable while dispelling the myths around hosting.
There is an irony in European states’ response to migration that has only served to limit the safe passage for migrants while worsening the criminal enterprises that traffic the vulnerable. The results are not surprising: considering the poor treatment in these places, migrants are forced to look for other and potentially more desperate means to escape, underlined by the increase of boat migrations.
Far too much ground has been given to the ‘political entrepreneurs’ of right-wing parties, with centrist parties and governments happy to increase the language of securitization around migration. While the results of the 2024 EU election are worrying, right-wing parties lost ground in Sweden, Denmark and Finland, and there were counter protests in support for refugees in the UK, facts that show that there could be another path forward. Instead of being preoccupied with the pressure from far-right parties on migration, what is needed is bold, clear messaging that affirms Europe’s commitment to protecting those vulnerable while dispelling the myths around hosting.
It is high time that an ethical and effective policy is put in place, one that prioritizes the protection of migrants. This cannot be done through paying states and looking the other way. Instead, there should be a push for policies of diplomatically addressing root causes of migration, offering more opportunities for legal asylum—and therefore safer passage—and developing more meaningful ways of integration. In parallel, a focused and sustained effort to recapture a rights-based discourse on migration must be a central element. Without it, we will only see a continuation of policies that endanger and undermine the legal and moral responsibility to protect those seeking safety.
Drew Mikhael is a former Nonresident Fellow at TIMEP focusing on migration and displacement across the MENA region.