The September CEI barometer shows that Spaniards perceive immigration as the country’s main problem, after months of political and media campaign led by the right. Although respondents significantly lower their perception of the problem when asked how it affects them personally (to fifth place), the escalation of immigration policy in the polls has not gone unnoticed by the parties. If Vox used it as leverage to break with the PP, Feijóo’s people have aligned their discourse with that of the ultras.
This Thursday, the opposition leader is visiting Giorgia Meloni in Italy to praise his anti-immigration measures. And Italy is the country in Europe where the most migrants arrive on its shores. Despite a harsh, xenophobic and racist speech on several occasions and despite having tried to criminalize non-governmental organizations and social movements that defend human rights, the data are conclusive: 43,804 entries in Italy compared to 38,302 in Spain, according to UN data up to September 15.
Feijóo lands in Rome for his second meeting with the leaders of his European political family or related parties. Meloni is not just any prime minister, but the leader of the main far-right group in Brussels and a loyal ally of Vox. It is common to see them together and, this Wednesday, Santiago Abascal joked about the meeting in the halls of Congress: “Mr. Feijóo and the PP can learn a lot. “I like that my partners and allies are becoming more and more considerate.”
The leader of the popular parties visited the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, last week. In Athens, the PP leader assured that immigration “is a non-existent policy” in Spain. And he stressed that it is a “problem that tries to be shared between the autonomous communities”, while highlighting the measures adopted by Greece, despite the evidence showing the abandonment of people, including young children, on the high seas.
Meloni’s whitewashing began in the run-up to the last European elections, when it seemed that the Italian’s support would be essential to obtain the majorities needed in Brussels to agree on the composition of the main community bodies. Even though the far right has finally split into three in the European Parliament and its influence is therefore limited, Ursula von der Leyen rewarded Meloni by giving him a vice-presidency.
Throughout the year, the PP has adopted the harshest discourse against migrants, identifying them as criminals, generators of insecurity and social problems, and even spreaders of disease. But these are not scattered voices within the party. They are not outbursts from mayors like Xavier García Albiol, who has encouraged “lynchings”, or capricious deputies who jump the script.
The discourse against migrants begins at the highest level of the PP. Feijóo himself directly accused them during the Catalan electoral campaign last May. His spokesperson, Borja Sémper, justified his leader. And since then, the xenophobic tone of the PP has only increased to compete with the extreme right of Vox.
Sociological data had already detected an increase in concerns about immigration. In November 2023, it reached 14.3%. Last July, it was 16.9%. Today, it stands at 30.4%.
The PP’s assimilation of the harshest speeches forced Vox to go further, until the leadership of Santiago Abascal forced the dissolution of the autonomous governments that they shared with those of Feijóo, despite the evident reluctance of the regional leaders. The excuse: the arrival of a handful of migrant minors in the communities.
In the recent European elections, the Salf group also emerged, led by Alvise Pérez, who made anti-immigration discourse one of the axes of his ultra proposal. The measures proposed by Salf are even more extreme than those of Vox, which have fueled an electoral competition that even targets migrant minors.
It is precisely right-wing voters who say they perceive the greatest risk in immigration.
Meloni’s Limited Success
The PP president has been distorting data on the increase in irregular entries into Spain for months. Although migrant arrivals have increased by 49% so far this year, this figure remains at the same level or lower than that of the other two EU countries with an external border with third countries; Italy and Greece.
Despite Feijóo’s insistence on setting an example for Meloni, Italy remains the country that has received the most irregular entries so far this year, with 43,804 migrants detected as of September 15. Spain comes in second, with 38,302; followed by Greece, with 36,963 arrivals.
The statements of the PP spokesman, Miguel Tellado, in which he requested the sending of military ships to prevent the arrival of migrants in Spain, marked one of the first milestones in the hardening of popular discourse. His proposal was then reminiscent of one of the most repeated measures by the extreme right Giorgia Meloni before reaching the Italian government.
“Naval blockade,” the far-right candidate at the time insisted during her campaign rallies. The Italian promised to prevent all migrant boats from landing on the Italian coast, without distinguishing the reasons that pushed them to risk their lives in the Mediterranean. But legal obstacles prevented this measure.
In 2023, with Meloni as Prime Minister, 157,652 people entered Italy irregularly, making it the country with the highest number of arrivals in the European Union by this route, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This year, however, there has been a drastic decrease in entries into Italy, linked among other factors to the effects of the EU-Tunisia agreement.
The increase in departures from Tunisia has had a direct impact on the increase in arrivals recorded in Italy in 2023. In order to block this route, in July last year, Tunisia and the EU sealed the pact that promised the North African state 105 million euros to combat irregular migration. The agreement was widely criticized by human rights organizations due to the mistreatment and persecution suffered by sub-Saharan migrants in that country.
Another of the anti-immigration measures promoted by Meloni last year was the agreement signed in 2023 with Albania to process asylum applications there for tens of thousands of people rescued at sea while trying to reach Italy. The pact has not yet been launched, although the Italian government plans to start implementing it soon.
Human Rights Watch, among other rights groups, has accused Italy of playing with migrants’ human rights and questioned the deal with Albania because it could lead to abuses such as those reported under the EU’s deal with Libya. Not taking refugees to the nearest Italian port “violates the human rights to rescue at sea and undermines the right to asylum and the right to arbitrary detention,” the group said. The European Commission said it would “monitor” the deal, and the UN refugee agency predicted it would cause “more suffering” like other similar deals.
Experts warn that such repressive measures, which border on legality, can block migratory traffic in one way, but that the flow will eventually increase in another. While the pace of arrivals via Italy has been reduced, due to the strengthening of border control by Tunisia after the agreement and the decrease in departures from Libya, arrivals are increasing via Spain. And if previously they left mainly from Senegal or Morocco towards the Spanish coasts, they now do so mainly from Mauritania due, also, to the increase in border control by the two countries.
Mauritania, however, has had more difficulty increasing its efforts to stop departures to the Canary Islands due to its particular situation, given that it is one of the main host states for Malian refugees. The escalation of the conflict in Mali has been seen in the migratory flow towards the Spanish coasts in 2024, particularly at the entrances to the Archipelago. Among the nationalities detected in sea crossings to Spain, Malian is the one that has increased the most so far this year, already surpassing Moroccan and Senegalese, according to police sources.
Mauritania is the only country that ranks first in the North African region, both as a host country and as a sending country, to or from another African country. In early 2024, the European Union allocated €210 million to Mauritania with the aim of reducing human trafficking and thus deterring ships leaving the Atlantic.
