The walls of Europe | What does the future hold for the EU's borders?

In the upcoming years the fight over migration will continue to play out between facts and emotions. The facts are that the European Union should welcome migrants, mainly due to low demographic and economic growth. The wealth of many EU societies needs their economies to constantly open up to younger generations and fill in key positions to keep them afloat - otherwise they risk going into recession.

Demographic fluctuations have an enormous impact on the movement of people: a shrinking or growing, young or aging population, affect economic growth and employment opportunities. The causes are often high unemployment, poor labour standards or the poor economic condition of a given country. People are looking for countries with better perspectives, and the current standards of the EU make it one of the most attractive regions for migrants.

In 2022, almost one million (965,665) asylum applications were submitted to the EU, 52.1% more than in 2021. This is the highest number since 2016. At the height of the migration crisis in 2015-2016, the number of applicants reached 1,221,690. The number of first-time asylum seekers in the EU in 2022 was 881,220 - 64% more than in the previous year (537,355).

The main reasons for migration include security, climate change, poverty, human rights and demography. With growing instability in regions like the Middle East or Central Africa, more migrants are expected to knock on the EU's doorstep. That is even before we see the true consequences of climate migration.

For now, emotions are stronger than facts: “Migration is causing great division in the European Union, and it could be the dissolving force of the EU. Despite the establishment of a common external border, we have not yet been able to agree on a common migration policy,” said the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell in September 2023 during an interview for the British daily The Guardian. According to Borell, migration is a greater threat to the EU than Brexit.

In September 2023 a scandal broke out in Poland where the Polish government was accused of giving easy access to Schengen visas in exchange for bribes in many Asian and African countries. Over 250,000 migrants are said to have arrived into the EU via this channel. That has led Germany to reintroduce border controls on its border with Poland.

In recent years, many people have been fleeing to Europe from conflict, terror and persecution in their countries. More than a quarter of the 384,245 asylum seekers who obtained protection status in the EU in 2022 came from war-torn Syria, with those from Afghanistan and Venezuela being the second and third largest groups respectively.

Anti-migration movements are fuel for populism and/or far right parties in many EU countries. Politicians use people’s fear and, instead providing them with information and solutions, they capitalise on it for their political needs. Brexit was fuelled by migration. Viktor Orban’s Hungary is very strong on anti-migration, but for eight years so was the Polish Law and Justice government. The recent political turns in both Slovakia and the Netherlands is also fuelled by this discourse.

The main challenges for the EU are "social inequalities (36%), unemployment (32%), followed by migration issues (31%)" - according to the Special Eurobarometer on the Future of Europe released by The European Parliament and Commission. At the same time, "91% of 15–24-year-olds believe that tackling climate change can help improve their own health and well-being, while 84% of those aged 55 or over agree. Almost every second European (49%) sees climate change as the main global challenge for the future of the EU".

Forecasts say climate change will exacerbate extreme weather events, resulting in larger amounts of people migrating in the near future. It is difficult to estimate the number of environmental migrants worldwide but various figures range between 25 million and 1 billion by 2050.