Europe’s problem? It’s too attractive
Harsh measures and lurid rhetoric on migration make the continent look as if it is betraying its own values
Europe’s soft power is threatening to undermine Europe’s soft power. Harvard’s Joseph Nye defines soft power as the power to attract. A recent global poll confirms once again that Europe has this in profusion. If you ask people in countries as diverse as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, South Africa and Brazil where they would like to live, if not in their own country, most of them choose the US or Europe. By contrast, far fewer want to live in China or Russia.
And right there is Europe’s problem. So attractive is Europe that millions of people would like to move here. Hundreds of thousands will actually try, risking their lives on flimsy boats across the Mediterranean. “It’s Europe or death,” said one. But the fear of uncontrolled mass migration is driving some European voters to xenophobic populist parties that not merely exploit but actively stir up civilisational panic about it.
Increasingly, 2023 is looking like a new 2015. The refugee and migrant crisis that began that year boosted the vote for the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the Freedom party in Austria — not to mention, for Brexit. Now the AfD is again growing in strength, even in prosperous German regions such as Bavaria and Hesse. The Freedom party tops Austria’s opinion polls. This week, Geert Wilders’ anti-Islamic populist party scored a shocking success in the Dutch elections. And we have elections to the European parliament next June.
In response, mainstream parties advocate increasingly harsh measures to control illegal immigration. One European head of government told me recently he thought Europe needed to do “something outrageous” to address this issue. I was tempted to answer: aren’t we already? Isn’t it outrageous that Greek coastguards are accused of illegally pushing back refugee boats? Isn’t it outrageous that the EU has been complicit in Libyan forces dragging back would-be migrants into terrible detention camps? Isn’t it outrageous that Giorgia Meloni’s Italian government is deterring private charity rescue vessels from saving people from drowning in the Mediterranean? Isn’t it outrageous that the British government contemplates abandoning the European Convention on Human Rights, just to send a few hundred asylum seekers to Rwanda?
People all around Europe’s edges, and across the world, see the freedom of movement enjoyed by Europeans inside the Schengen area as being bought at the expense of their own, tightly restricted travel to Europe. Ask any Turk or Indian about their experiences while trying to get a Schengen or UK visa. The lurid rhetoric of hard-right populists like Britain’s former home secretary Suella Braverman, who has described illegal immigration as an “invasion” and protesters against Israel’s military action in Gaza as “pro-Palestinian mobs”, also risks alienating the millions of people with a migration background who live in Europe.
Europe’s soft power is not just about its prosperity, welfare systems and quality of life. It’s also about freedom, the rule of law, tolerance and respect for human rights. In that same poll, respondents in many parts of the world said that Vladimir Putin’s Russia was not part of Europe “when it comes to its current political values”. Europe is associated with a set of values. But Europe is not credible as a continent of values if it violates them itself, precisely at the points where people from the rest of the world encounter it: at its borders, above all, but also in the reception of asylum seekers and the inflammatory mischaracterisation of people of migrant backgrounds already inside those borders.
There’s no question that migration to Europe has to be managed. The Brexit campaign’s slogan “Take Back Control” was so brilliant precisely because it touched the heart of voters’ fear — that migration was out of control. Now former German president Joachim Gauck is talking about Kontrollverlust, the loss of control, which sounds familiar. If European governments don’t manage to convey a sense of migration being under control to their electorates within the next six months, next June’s elections may see the European parliament shifted to the illiberal right. Yet managing migration has to be done in ways that are safe, humane and legal, or Europe is betraying its own values.
Fail either in one direction or the other and the manner in which Europe addresses the consequences of its “power to attract” will start subverting another important aspect of its soft power — its values. Here is Europe’s soft power dilemma.