iscover
Opinion: Europe is experiencing a rise in nationalism driven by migration, economic pressures and ongoing conflicts. As far-right parties gain influence and anti-migrant sentiment grows, there are concerns these trends could erode democratic institutions, increase social tensions and undermine long-term political and economic stability, explains Alan Callow.
For decades, Europe presented itself to the world as the gold standard of liberal democracy – a continent that had learned from its catastrophic past and built institutions capable of protecting human dignity, pluralism and the rule of law. That self-image is now under severe strain.
A cascade of forces, from failed military interventions in the Middle East to the deepening war in Ukraine, has generated migration pressures that are feeding a resurgent nationalism – one with echoes that many Europeans hoped they would never hear again.
The roots of the crisis
The instability driving migration to Europe did not emerge in a vacuum. The US-led intervention in Iraq in 2003, NATO’s subsequent involvement in Libya, and the protracted war in Syria – in which Western powers played deeply ambiguous roles – destabilised entire regions.
Millions were displaced, and a significant portion made their way towards Europe. The 2015 migration crisis, which saw over 1.3 million people claim asylum across the continent, became a political watershed. It shattered the illusion that Europe could manage large-scale human movement without profound social and political consequences.
Nationalism’s new surge
The political fallout has been dramatic. Across Western Europe’s most established democracies, parties once confined to the fringe have moved steadily towards the centre of power, fuelled largely by anxieties about immigration.
In France, the National Rally has consistently polled above 30 per cent, positioning itself as the principal opposition force by framing immigration as an existential threat to French identity. In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland has become the country’s second-largest political party, more than doubling its support from roughly 11 per cent in 2021 to over 24 per cent in 2025, with its strongest performances in economically disadvantaged eastern regions.
In Italy, the transformation has been even more dramatic: Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy – a party with post-fascist roots – now leads the government, having secured nearly 60 per cent of parliamentary seats, the most striking nationalist surge seen in western Europe since the Second World War.
These movements share a common strategy: harnessing economic anxiety and cultural unease around migration to position themselves as defenders of national sovereignty. Housing shortages, pressure on public services, and rising living costs have proven more potent drivers of anti-immigration sentiment than terrorism fears, according to analysts – a detail that makes the phenomenon harder to address, because these grievances are at least partially legitimate.
A warning sign From Ukraine
The danger is not confined to western Europe. In Ukraine, a country already under existential strain from a grinding war with Russia, a new fault line has appeared. To compensate for the catastrophic loss of working-age men – killed, injured or conscripted – Kyiv has opened its labour market to workers from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal since 2025.
The response from certain quarters of Ukrainian society has been alarming. During the weekend of 23–24 May 2026, Ukrainian nationalist protesters took to the streets in Kyiv and Lviv, specifically targeting the government’s migrant labour policy. Demonstrators carried banners reading “Ukraine for Ukrainians”, “For a White Ukraine” and “Get out of Ukraine, you ugly migrant” – slogans that left little ambiguity about their character. Alongside the explicit racial hostility and Nazi salutes, protesters chanted slogans calling for violence against Indian nationals – a grotesque spectacle in a country that the democratic world has spent years and billions of euros trying to support.
This is not an isolated episode. Ukrainian social media platforms had been flooded with xenophobic rhetoric against south Asian workers throughout May 2026, and the Indian government has taken note, ramping up consular protection mechanisms for its citizens in the country.
Democracy’s fragile foundations
What is most worrying about these developments is not any single incident but the trajectory they suggest. History offers a clear and unambiguous lesson: when societies under economic or existential stress permit extreme nationalist movements to normalise racial hatred, the distance between a political rally and a pogrom can be disturbingly short. The dehumanising language already in circulation – calling migrants “ugly”, framing their presence as an “invasion”, invoking racial purity – is precisely the language that preceded Europe’s worst acts of mass violence in the 20th century.
If left unchecked, this rhetoric creates the conditions for uncontrolled, brutal acts of violence against migrants and minorities. And when states fail to protect vulnerable people on their territory – or when they implicitly legitimise the forces threatening them – they corrode the institutional trust and legal norms that democracies depend on to function. Europe cannot claim to defend democratic values abroad while tolerating their systematic dismantlement at home.
The economic dimension
There is a further dimension to this crisis that receives insufficient attention: its potential to trigger a serious financial crisis in Europe. Migration, when properly managed, provides essential economic benefits – younger workers filling labour market gaps in ageing societies, tax revenues supporting social welfare systems, and entrepreneurial energy driving innovation. The indiscriminate restriction of migration, driven by nationalist pressure rather than evidence-based policy, risks undermining all of these contributions.
More immediately, political instability tied to the migration debate threatens investor confidence. Countries governed by nationalist coalitions hostile to EU integration may resist the fiscal coordination and policy harmonisation the bloc needs to manage economic shocks. A fracturing of European political consensus makes debt mutualisation harder, weakens the institutional credibility of the euro, and raises the spectre of the kind of capital flight last seen during the eurozone crisis. Social unrest, should it escalate to widespread violence against migrant communities, would further damage European economies that depend on international labour mobility and foreign investment.
A continent at a crossroads
Europe is not doomed to this trajectory. But the window for course correction is narrowing. Addressing the migration crisis requires confronting its root causes honestly – including the role of Western military and foreign policy failures in generating displacement – while building fair, humane and orderly migration frameworks domestically.
It also requires political courage: the willingness to reject the demagogues offering simple answers to complex problems, and to defend the democratic and humanitarian principles that gave postwar Europe its moral credibility.
The Nazi salutes in Kyiv and the polling booths where far-right parties now lead are not separate phenomena. They are symptoms of the same fracture. If European societies cannot hold that line, the values they claim to represent will become an epitaph rather than a living commitment.
Alan Callow is a graduate of Western Mindanao State University in the Philippines and is a freelance journalist with experience in writing about the Asia-Pacific region.
Want to see more stories from trusted news sources?
Make Defence Connect a preferred news source on Google.
Click here to add Defence Connect as a preferred news source.