THE MAINSTREAMING OF THE REMIGRATION FRAME IN EUROPE AND WHY IT MIGHT BE THERE TO STAY FOR A WHILE

Abstract

Concerns regarding the changing face of Europe due to major cultural, ethnic, and/or racial shifts in the demographic features of the continent have been expressed by far right and nationalist-populist political parties since at least the 1980s. However, a relatively new term, remigration, associated with the reversal of migration trends (that could be accomplished courtesy of a combination of forceful measures and the provision of incentives for certain immigrant groups to leave on their own accord) has been gaining traction in the years following the 2015 European migrant crisis. The 2020s have seen the concept cross over into the political mainstream, especially in Western Europe, with the virtues of policies placing a premium on remigration no longer being extolled exclusively by parties considered to occupy the fringes of politics. The paper draws on a qualitative methodology, which entails the synthesis and analysis of selected primary and secondary sources falling within the scope of international relations, political science, sociology, and migration studies. Following a brief literature review, in which it attempts to shed proper light on some of the underlying assumptions pertaining to remigration, it advances a two-fold argument. Firstly, it contends that discussions surrounding remigration (in its softer version that does not explicitly target non-indigenous Europeans or properly assimilated immigrants on racial or ethnic grounds) are now very much in vogue in Western European politics. Secondly, it argues that these trends concerning the enhanced palatability of the concept for wider audiences and its ability to influence certain EU-wide policies are likely to persist, at least in the conceivable future. It illustrates this by drawing on the example of South Africa, where since 2026 the government has essentially come under pressure, to implement a sped-up and largely involuntary repatriation of immigrant groups, as well as the now scrapped Rwanda asylum plan, demonstrating how certain dynamics when it comes to migration to Europe may affect the calculations of European policy-makers, encouraging them to stay the course with regard to a strict approach to migration management, and why the normalization of policies on the European Union (EU) level revolving around remigration is unlikely to have a significant negative effect on the EU’s ability to properly use its soft power tools. In essence, the article posits that a mild form of ‘remigration’, implying the deportation of problematic immigrant groups as well as the provision of incentives for unassimilated migrants to return to their countries of origin, is likely to continue to be viewed as par for the course within the political landscape in many Western European countries