Vaccines against falsehoods about migrants

The public debate sparked by the incredible migration chaos in Ceuta has brought back into the spotlight many discussions concerning two very important types of borders that affect the health of our democracies. The first boundary relates to the geographical limits of Europe, and the images from Ceuta have prompted much reflection. What happens when people cross a border en masse? What happens when a democracy struggles to manage that border? What happens when Europe struggles to find the right words to respond to a major migration crisis? What happens when, faced with such phenomena, we choose to focus more on the internal borders of European countries than on the external borders of Europe as a whole? The second border that has been discussed indirectly in recent hours concerns not a physical but a cultural boundary, which coincides with the definition of an important political framework to be considered: where does populism begin when we talk about immigration?

A section of the European right, including the Italian right, has chosen – as Anne Applebaum so admirably wrote yesterday in "The Atlantic" – to distort the images coming out of Ceuta, failing to mention that Ceuta is in North Africa, that reaching Spain from Ceuta is not like climbing over a fence, and that three-quarters of those arriving in Ceuta returned to Morocco within a few hours, in order to give the impression that, for Europe, for the West, for democracies, the ‘invasion’ is no longer a question of ‘if’, but merely a matter of ‘when’. The real tragedy, however, is that a section of the European left – starting with the Italian left – has shown itself to be stubbornly determined to pigeonhole every possible response to migration within the broad category of xenophobic choices. Today, as you know, the European Union’s interior ministers have convened an emergency meeting to discuss the Ceuta situation, to consider what action to take on the issue of combating illegal immigration, and to assess what measures to implement to strengthen border controls.

The example that the Italian left should look to in order to understand how Europe’s borders can be effectively safeguarded – whether in terms of physical borders or populism – is not that of Giorgia Meloni. The example to follow is that of the Danish model of the left. Mette Frederiksen, the Danish Social Democratic Prime Minister, who has long been on the same wavelength as Meloni on immigration issues, has not chosen to embrace a xenophobic and extremist stance on border management. She has tried a different approach. She has sought to demonstrate, even to her own political camp, that solidarity and responsibility, when it comes to immigration, are not mutually exclusive principles. Frederiksen argues that taking a firm stance on who is allowed to enter and remain in a country is essential for upholding the rule of law and, consequently, security, because it is democratic institutions – not people-smugglers, sudden crises or an individual’s ability to cross a border illegally – that must decide who can enter and remain in a country. Frederiksen argues that invoking a limit on a country’s reception capacity does not mean denying the right to asylum: it means setting the right numbers to try to ensure integration. Frederiksen argues that a system in which a ‘no’ to an asylum application almost never leads to the return of those who have no right to remain ends up losing credibility even when it says ‘yes’, because return is not the opposite of asylum: it is what enables protection to be reserved for those who are entitled to it. Frederiksen does not merely argue that, in order to manage internal borders, it is necessary to strengthen external borders – as Europe is attempting to do, including through the much-debated and criticised European Pact on Migration and Asylum – but she also argues that turning a blind eye to the difficulties that immigration can cause is populism, not anti-populism, and for this reason she has long maintained that denying the problems for fear of appearing racist harms, first and foremost, those immigrants who abide by the rules.

Finally, Frederiksen argues that when it comes to immigration issues, what is needed is not ideology but pragmatism, realism and cross-party cooperation; and regarding her special relationship with Giorgia Meloni, she has long maintained that one cannot reject a solution simply because it is also supported by the right, nor should one allow the right to have a monopoly on security, borders and repatriation. It is, of course, positive that the Italian left is calling on Meloni to show less demagoguery, but the alternative to the Meloni model (demagoguery is calling for the hasty closure of Schengen, not asking Europe to police the borders more rigorously than it does today) does not exist without realising that, when it comes to immigration, security and freedom can go hand in hand, and that solidarity is not incompatible with responsibility. It is not anti-populism to regard any response that goes beyond merely invoking solidarity as ‘fascist’. It is not racism, as the Danish Prime Minister does, to speak of borders that need defending and deterrence that needs to be applied. It is not a right-wing stance, as the European Union is attempting to portray – even with the support of the Party of European Socialists – to work towards faster repatriations and to implement a more effective fight against illegal immigration.

Ultimately, on the left, it is not enough simply to say that Meloni is a fascist in order to build an alternative to xenophobia. The chaos in Ceuta, in this sense, has brought two different kinds of borders back to the centre of the debate. And, whether we are talking about physical borders or the boundaries defined by political populism, the Italian left is a negative anomaly in Europe; it is the only left-wing movement in a major European country to profess broad solidarity without any real sense of responsibility, and it therefore has a great deal of work to do to learn from other European left-wing movements – including that of Sánchez – which have realised that, when it comes to tackling immigration, simply throwing open one’s arms is not enough: strength, resolve, deterrence and solutions are needed, in the knowledge that preaching solidarity without responsibility is not an alternative but simply the other side of the coin of European populism.