“The majority parties have begun to focus more on immigration in the face of the perspective of losing electoral support”
Why have immigration and asylum become the main issue of electoral campaigns in Europe?
Various parties have taken the hardening of migration and asylum policies as a central mobilization issue. Populist parties have used this issue to point out a “us” against “them.” The problem is that the parties use this issue to symbolize that societies can be attributed to migrants as a simple way to explain problems. A significant voter group feels persuaded by this issue. Many parties in Europe have failed to give an adequate response to this challenge. As a result, many other parties are also mobilizing around these issues.
Is it a reaction to the speech of the extreme right or a response to the electorate’s concern?
Yes, to some extent, the majority parties that have felt attracted by the populist and right -wing parties that have used the issue of migration have begun to focus more on these issues in the face of the perspective of losing electoral support. But, once again, this is mainly due to the fact that extreme right parties have used this matter to find a group or a problem to blame.
Even the European Commission has criticized the detention centers in third countries, such as Italy with Albania …
Indeed.
Social democracy in Germany and Denmark has also hardened their discourse on immigration. Should traditional parties replicate the speech of the radical populist right?
For years, majority parties have had to decide whether to adopt the speech of rival parties or stay out of those policies. For many years, majority matches tried to keep their own approach. However, in the recent elections to the European Parliament and also in the German elections, the rival marginal parties managed to obtain many votes. The majority parties face a difficult decision. In general, the recommendation of political analysts is not to adopt the policies of rival parties; They often lean slightly towards them, but sometimes the majority parties adopt more extreme political positions anyway to try to capture the vote.
Are these trends to protect themselves from refugees and temporary illegal immigrants or will they remain in the future?
It is not clear if this trend will continue or if it is a turning point. The presidential elections in Poland last Sunday were very close, but resulted in a conservative candidate. However, today there is an interesting event. The Dutch government has fallen, because the PVV party of Geert Wilders withdrew from the government due to the migratory problem. However, it is not clear immediately if the Netherlands will experience a turn to the right (when there are new elections in autumn, for example in October) or if this decision of the PVV party to leave the government could actually lead to a turn to the left. The surveys indicated that the PVV party had recently been losing support.