The news over the last 24 hours that the Hard Right won the recent election in Austria, and that Israel was preparing for boots on the ground in Lebanon following days of strikes, might seem at first glance unconnected. Yet, connected they are.
Without years of failed border controls in the EU, especially in Western Europe – stretching all the way back to the 2015 Syrian migrant crisis – parties like the Austrian Freedom Party would have gained no traction.
Ditto Marine Le Pen in France, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Viktor Orbán in Hungary (or Nigel Farage in pre- and post-Brexit Britain), all of which are at various stages of attaining power, winning power or upending the current political system.
As with the rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement Stateside, this is largely a consequence of the failure to cope with mass immigration.
Now, a new migrant crisis threatens to upend an EU already struggling to get a grip on the last one, with its latest migration pact in the bloc already disavowed by Hungary and Poland, and perhaps soon the Netherlands. Even former Brexit negotiator and new French PM, Michel Barnier, has had a Damascene conversion on immigration controls.
As you read this, masses of refugees are making their way from Lebanon to Syria, reversing a journey made a few years ago when Syrians decamped en masse to their next-door neighbour.
If Lebanese estimates are to be believed, at least one million people have already been displaced within Lebanon by the current conflict, which has seen Hezbollah’s leadership decapacitated. This includes many Syrians who made Lebanon home.
As in 2015 it is eminently conceivable that many of these people will make their way to Europe, either through Syria and Turkey, or via the Mediterranean. To what extent Damascus and Ankara will find it in their hearts to help Europe given the latter’s support for Israel remains to be seen.
At the very least, Europe – already poorer than 9 years ago – may find itself having to bankroll Syria and Turkey in exchange for keeping migrants at bay. This financial blackmail or bribery – depending on your vantage point – is mirrored right now in North Africa where EU states are essentially paying countries to hold immigrants back.
But, as is allegedly the case with Belarus, countries bordering the EU are hardly averse to weaponising migration. This will be especially so if they believe there is a few extra quid to be made out of it.
Truth be told, Europe can neither financially afford a re-run of 2015, nor politically afford it. This is a continent already reeling from higher energy costs, as well as the surge of the Hard Right, and an ongoing east-by-west split which means even centrists like Polish PM Donald Tusk remain committed to the toughest of immigration controls.
Israel would turn around, no doubt, and say Europe has no obligation to take in said refugees. This is technically true, although – whether European peoples like it or not – EU elites will almost certainly feel duty-bound to do so.
Meanwhile, we all know the wealthy Gulf Arab states will never accept mass immigration of their Muslim brothers and sisters, whatever ersatz protests they make in support of the Palestinian cause.
Therefore, the Israeli conflict in Lebanon (and Gaza for that matter), and the victory of the nationalists in Austria, as well as the ongoing financial misappropriation trial of Marine Le Pen and her colleagues, are all intimately connected.
On the latter point, Le Pen leads polls for the next French presidential vote. No doubt millions of fence-sitting French voters see the trial as an attempt to disbar her from contesting the election at all.
A new migration crisis therefore looms over Europe, whatever Israel’s intentions may be, and – just as with the imminent US election – the mass immigration crisis will be a defining feature of future EU-wide and national level elections.
Europe is totally ill-equipped – either financially or politically – for a new migrant crisis, and hand-wringing European politicians have neither the will to seriously stop this nor the will to protest what Israel is doing on the grounds of the burden Europe may have to shoulder (not that Israel would care since, so far as the latter is concerned, the EU should just say no to said migrants).
What future though for the EU and Europe as they likely face the next great migrant crisis? And how much longer can the likes of Viktor Orbán play along with this game and pretend like the EU can seriously be reformed from within?
