# The Imprint of Populism within the New Pact on Migration and Asylum of 2020

- Author(s) : Coline Eyssautier
- Published : 2026-02-05
- Updated : 2026-02-05
- Publisher: PromethEUs, European federalist think tank (https://prometheus-euro.eu)
- Source : https://prometheus-euro.eu/en/news/the-imprint-of-populism-within-the-new-pact-on-migration-and-asylum-of-2020

> The formation, negotiation, and final adoption of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum (2020-2024) represent a pivotal moment in the history of European integration, marking the shift from a normative approach based on harmonization and mandatory solidarity to a pragmatic, security-oriented, and flexible approach, dictated by the political necessity of containing the rise of populist and nationalist forces. This report, based on an exhaustive analysis of legislative texts, political declarations, and institutional dynamics, demonstrates that the Pact's architecture is intrinsically a response to the red lines drawn by illiberal governments (Visegrád Group) and influential far-right parties within key Member States, such as Italy, France, and Germany.

### Introduction

The formation, negotiation, and final adoption of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum (2020–2024) represent a pivotal moment in the history of European integration, marking the shift from a normative approach based on harmonization and mandatory solidarity to a pragmatic, security-oriented, and flexible approach, dictated by the political necessity of containing the rise of populist and nationalist forces. This article, based on an in-depth analysis of legislative texts, political declarations, and institutional dynamics, shows that the Pact's architecture largely constitutes a response to the red lines drawn by the illiberal governments of the Visegrád Group and the pressure exerted by influential far-right political forces within key Member States, notably Italy, France, and Germany.​

Although far-right parliamentary groups (Identity and Democracy, ID, and European Conservatives and Reformists, ECR) frequently voted against the final texts in the European Parliament, arguing they did not go far enough, analysis suggests a partial but significant convergence between the adopted instruments and certain preferences long championed by these movements1​. The abandonment of mandatory relocation quotas, the introduction of the "return sponsorship" mechanism, the widespread use of border procedures based on the fiction of non-entry, and the prioritization of the external dimension and returns testify to a structural shift toward a control-based approach. The von der Leyen Commission, seeking to break the deadlock left by the failure of the 2016 proposals, integrated security elements to preserve the possibility of a compromise in the Council, at the risk of undermining the balance between administrative efficiency, solidarity, and the guarantee of fundamental rights.

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### 1. The Legitimacy Crisis of European Migration Policy

#### 1.1. A Europe Fragmented Between Supranational Solidarity and National Sovereignty

The history of European migration policy over the last decade is one of a violent collision between supranational ideals of solidarity and the brutal resurgence of national sovereignty, driven by an unprecedented populist wave. When the European Commission, under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen, unveiled its "New Pact on Migration and Asylum" in September 2020, it was attempting to solve a political equation that had become existential: how to maintain a common asylum regime when a blocking minority of Member States, guided by nativist ideologies, categorically refused the very principle of hosting.

The arrival of more than a million refugees, mainly Syrian, in 2015 acted as a particle accelerator for Populist Radical Right (PRR) movements. In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) capitalized on Angela Merkel's *Wir schaffen das* to enter the Bundestag2​. In Italy, Matteo Salvini's League transformed the issue of landings into a massive electoral weapon. In Central Europe, Viktor Orbán cast the figure of the Muslim migrant as a civilizational threat, consolidating what he himself calls an "illiberal" regime.

These movements share a common ideology, populism, centered on the opposition between a "pure" people and a "corrupt" elite, often embodied by Brussels, coupled with an exclusionary nativism. Their influence has not been limited to their electoral success. It has gradually contaminated the discourse of mainstream parties. The European People's Party (EPP), the political family of the Commission President, thus hardened its line under pressure from its most conservative members, such as Sebastian Kurz's Austrian ÖVP, and the effect of electoral competition from the radical right.

#### 1.2. The Modalities of Populist Influence on the 2020 Pact

Populist influence on the 2020 Pact is rarely direct, yet it is omnipresent. It does not manifest through explicit participation in drafting the texts, but through the gradual definition of the limits of what is politically acceptable. Three main mechanisms can be identified that structure the final balance of the compromise.

First, influence through the veto in the European Council. The permanent threat of blockage by Hungary and Poland forced the Commission to discard any ambition for legally binding solidarity, particularly in the form of automatic relocations. This constraint falls within a "blocking minority" logic which, in intergovernmental negotiations, makes any proposal perceived as an infringement on national sovereignty politically costly3​.

Second, influence through discourse contamination. Security themes, such as walls, detention, the fight against "abuse," and the instrumentalization of migrants, have gradually moved from the margins of political debate to the heart of European discussions, eventually being translated into legal and administrative mechanisms4​ . This discursive shift facilitates the adoption of more restrictive instruments, as it transforms the political object of asylum into an issue of control.

Finally, influence through national electoral pressure. The fear of electoral victories by figures like Marine Le Pen or Matteo Salvini pushed several centrist leaders, including Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, to adopt more restrictive positions in European negotiations to reduce the vulnerability of their internal majorities. Migration policy thus becomes a field where European compromise is directly indexed to the stability of national coalitions.

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### 2. From Dublin IV to the 2020 Pact: The Failure of Binding Solidarity

The 2020 Pact is a direct result of the failure of the 2016 reform proposals, known as "Dublin IV." To measure the extent of populist influence, it is necessary to compare what the Juncker Commission attempted to impose with what the von der Leyen Commission finally proposed and successfully had adopted. This comparison highlights a shift, not only in instruments but also in the very definition of solidarity.

In May 2016, in an emergency context marked by the massive influx of refugees seeking asylum in Europe, the Juncker Commission presented a "corrective allocation mechanism"5​. This device was based on a strongly federal logic and aimed to establish mandatory solidarity through relocation. When a Member State faced an influx exceeding 150% of its reception capacity—calculated based on criteria such as population and GDP—new asylum seekers beyond this threshold were to be automatically relocated to other Member States under less pressure.

The mechanism also included a deterrent financial clause. A State temporarily refusing to participate in relocations would have to pay a solidarity contribution of 250,000 euros per refused applicant to the State taking the person in. This logic of constraint aimed to make refusal more costly than cooperation and, consequently, to protect the principle of a common regime.

This proposal met with frontal opposition from the Visegrád Group, composed of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia6​. These governments, several of which were led by populist parties like Fidesz in Hungary or PiS in Poland, rejected not only the technical modalities but the very principle of a multicultural society imposed by quotas. This challenge manifested as a strategy of systematic obstruction, consisting of refusing any detailed negotiation to block the entire process in the Council, which made compromise impossible for a long time.

Meanwhile, Viktor Orbán and his allies developed a powerful counter-narrative stating that solidarity should not be expressed through hosting, but through the protection of external borders, explicitly rejecting any form of "forced solidarity"6​ . This semantic reversal, substituting hosting with control as a symbol of contribution, paved the way for the reconfiguration carried out in 2020.

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### 3. The Pragmatic Realism of the von der Leyen Commission

#### 3.1. Integrating Red Lines to Avoid Deadlock

The failure of Dublin IV sent a clear message to the Brussels technocracy. No reform could succeed if it maintained mandatory relocations perceived as a direct blow to national sovereignty. When von der Leyen's team took office, the objective became to avoid another institutional impasse at all costs. It was less about settling the fundamental debate than producing a reform package capable of crossing the political thresholds of the Council.

The 2020 Pact was designed around the V4's red lines, not to obtain their full and total adherence, but to neutralize their capacity to block. This point is essential to understanding the logic of the text, which does not aim to impose a single normative vision but to make a minimal agreement possible at the cost of a more permissive compromise on content.

#### 3.2. Semantic Break and Hierarchization of Priorities

The presentation of the Pact in September 2020 by Ursula von der Leyen and her Vice-President Margaritis Schinas, responsible for "Promoting our European Way of Life," marked both a semantic and conceptual break. The choice of words contributes to a framing in which migration is linked more to security and identity than to solidarity, which affects the political reception of the text.

To facilitate political acceptance, Schinas introduced the metaphor of a "three-story house." The first floor concerns the external dimension, centered on partnerships with countries of origin and transit to limit departures7​. The second floor is dedicated to borders, with a reinforcement of Frontex and border procedures. The third floor rests on a permanent but flexible solidarity mechanism.

This architecture reveals a clear hierarchy. Externalization and border control become the central pillars of the system, while solidarity —the heart of the 2016 proposal— is relegated to a crisis management mechanism lacking any binding character.

In her State of the Union address, Ursula von der Leyen announced she wanted to "abolish the Dublin Regulation"8​. Yet, the new Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR) retains its fundamental principle. Responsibility remains largely assigned to the country of first entry, while the automatic correction through quotas disappears. This evolution lightens the constraint on Eastern countries while maintaining structural pressure on Italy, Greece, and Spain, illustrating an implicit political trade-off between two coalitions of Member States.

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### 4. Mandatory but Flexible Solidarity: A Conceptual Redefinition

A central concept emerges from the 2020 Pact: "mandatory but flexible solidarity." The text recognizes the need for a collective effort but profoundly redefines the nature of that solidarity. It ceases to be an obligation of result —consisting of distributing asylum seekers—to become an obligation of means based on participation in the common effort. In other words, solidarity is no longer measured primarily by the number of people relocated, but by the contribution made by each Member State, according to a chosen modality9​.

Member States can thus choose between several modalities. They can proceed with the relocation of asylum seekers, opt for a financial contribution intended to strengthen the capacities of other States or fund external actions, provide operational support by sending experts or border guards, or resort to "return sponsorship," an option often favored by populist governments.

Return sponsorship allows a State to contribute by organizing the removal of an irregularly staying person located in another Member State, rather than hosting a refugee10​. The sponsoring State mobilizes its diplomatic relations to obtain consular travel documents and organizes the return. A transfer clause provides that if the return fails within eight months (or four months in a crisis situation), the person is transferred to the territory of the sponsoring State.

This mechanism was designed to allow V4 governments to display a contribution consistent with their political discourse, refusing hosting while actively participating in deportations. It thus validates a populist rhetoric that measures migration efficiency by the rate of returns. However, this device is criticized for its legal and operational risks, notably the creation of limbo situations dependent on the uncertain cooperation of third countries. Some V4 States eventually became wary of it, fearing that the transfer clause would open the way for indirect relocations11​. This ambivalence shows that, even in a flexible framework, the issue of constraint is not entirely neutralized; it is displaced.

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### 5. The Security Architecture of the Pact

While solidarity is loosened, border control is considerably strengthened. The new Screening Regulation imposes a mandatory five-to-seven-day procedure for anyone crossing the external border irregularly. During this phase, individuals are held in specific locations and subjected to a "fiction of non-entry," whereby they are not legally considered present on Union territory.

This legal construction allows for the restriction of certain procedural rights, facilitates de facto detention—though the term "retention" is preferred—and applies accelerated procedures at the border. It responds directly to the populist critique that arrival on European soil should not immediately grant a set of rights deemed excessive12​. More broadly, it reflects a priority given to flow management and the speed of procedures rather than a gradual integration into the ordinary regime.

The transformation of the Eurodac database also illustrates this securitization. Initially designed to manage asylum applications, it is becoming a broader migration surveillance tool. The minimum age for collecting fingerprints and facial images is lowered to six years, and new categories are integrated, including irregularly staying persons who are not asylum seekers12​. The stated objective is notably to combat "secondary movements," a central issue in Northern Union countries where the radical right has frequently denounced a misuse of the asylum system.

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### 6. Border Procedures and Instrumentalization of Migrants

The Pact makes the use of accelerated asylum procedures at the border mandatory for nationals of countries with a recognition rate of less than 20%13​ ​. This measure creates a fast track toward removal for a large portion of arrivals and institutionalizes the idea that certain nationalities are presumed ineligible for international protection13​. It thus simplifies the initial assessment of claims, but at the cost of a categorization that can fuel a binary framing of migration.

The crisis at the border between Belarus and the European Union in 2021 introduced a new notion: the instrumentalization of migrants. Under pressure from Poland and the Baltic States, the Commission integrated a regulation allowing for derogations from standard asylum norms13​​. These derogations include lengthening registration deadlines, extending border procedures, and the possibility of prolonged detentions.

This mechanism validates a narrative framing that presents migrants not as vulnerable people, but as instruments of destabilization in a logic of hybrid warfare12​. It a posteriori legitimizes pushback practices and exclusion zones, contributing to the transformation of a security exception into a potential norm. This point illustrates, with particular clarity, the ability of certain Member States to engrain a security reading of a political event into European law.

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### 7. National Vectors of Populist Pressure

Populist influence varies according to the role States play in the European migration system. Viktor Orbán's Hungary plays a central role through its systematic obstruction and its ability to impose its themes14​. It promotes the idea that border protection constitutes a superior form of solidarity to hosting and pushes for the expansion of the concept of "safe third country," despite repeated judicial condemnations. In this context, it contributes to shifting the norm by making deterrence a legitimate principle of contribution.

Italy illustrates a different dynamic. Under Matteo Salvini, the "closed ports" policy created an artificial crisis, forcing the European Union to manage the emergency and paving the way for ad hoc mechanisms. Minister Luciana Lamorgese later attempted to rebalance the Italian position, welcoming the Pact while criticizing the complexity of return sponsorship7​. With Giorgia Meloni, a more pragmatic approach has taken hold, based on accepting the Pact in exchange for a validation of the externalization strategy, notably through the Mattei Plan with Tunisia. This Italian trajectory shows that populist pressure does not always lead to the rejection of European compromise; it can also encourage its reorientation toward instruments compatible with a national policy of firmness.

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### 8. The "Orbanization" of European Asylum Policy

The final result of this process is sometimes called the "Orbanization" of European asylum policy. This term refers to the gradual normalization of principles once considered marginal, such as the primacy of security, the instrumentalization of law, the construction of walls, and the relativization of procedural guarantees6​. Taken seriously as an analytical category, it refers to a hierarchy of priorities in which border protection becomes a superior objective, to the detriment of the initial ambition of binding solidarity.

Reports from non-governmental organizations, such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, warn of the risk of generalizing previously exceptional practices, notably prolonged detention or pushbacks. The unblocking of European funds despite documented violations of the rule of law illustrates a hierarchy of priorities that now favors border control. The stake is not only moral; it is institutional, as it affects the balance between administrative efficiency, political control, and the effectiveness of rights.

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### 9. Toward a Security Redefinition of the European Asylum Regime

Analysis shows that populist radical right parties do not need to be in the majority to structure the European agenda. By exploiting the rules of the Council, the capacity to block, and national electoral pressure, they have contributed to a profound redesign of the Union's migration policy.

Mandatory relocation has been abandoned, Fortress Europe has been strengthened, and externalization to non-democratic regimes has been normalized. The 2020 Pact thus appears as an institutional survival strategy aimed at preserving Schengen and the political unity of the bloc. By validating part of the populist theses, the European Union however exposes itself to lasting tension. These forces continue to reject the compromise as insufficient, while having profoundly transformed the norms, priorities, and language of the common migration policy.

## Sources

1. European Commission, « Pact on Migration and Asylum » — https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/migration-and-asylum/pact-migration-and-asylum_en
2. Chloe Bouvier, « What the EU political manifestos say about migration - PICUM » — https://picum.org/blog/what-the-eu-political-manifestos-say-about-migration/
3. Ayhan Kaya, « The instrumentalisation of migration in the populist era » — https://mixedmigration.org/publications/mmr/2024/the-instrumentalisation-of-migration-in-the-populist-era/
4. Olivia Sundberg Diez, « 2020 MEDAM Assessment Report on Asylum and Migration Policies in Europe » — https://www.kielinstitut.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/IfW-Publications/fis-import/f04a04fa-858d-43eb-a70c-c4b2a7b7f8ff-MEDAM_Assessment_Report_2020_Discussions.pdf
5. Kimara Davis, « THE EUROPEAN UNION’S DUBLIN REGULATION AND THE  MIGRANT CRISIS » — https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1708&context=law_globalstudies
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8. European External Action Service, « A fresh start with a new Pact on Migration and Asylum » — https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/fresh-start-new-pact-migration-and-asylum_en
9. Francesco Maiani, « A “Fresh Start” or One More Clunker? Dublin and Solidarity in the New Pact – EU Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy » — https://api.unil.ch/iris/server/api/core/bitstreams/bcf68ca3-c3ab-48c1-8669-a7802c715518/content
10. Lina Vosyliūtė, « EU return sponsorship in light of the UN Global Compacts | Asile » — https://www.asileproject.eu/eu-return-sponsorship-in-light-of-the-un-global-compacts/
11. Human Rights Watch, « World Report 2025: Rights Trends in European Union » — https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/european-union
12. European Parliament, « VERBATIM REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS » — https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-9-2021-06-23_EN.pdf
13. Radio Télévision Suisse, « Comment expliquer l'ascension de l'extrême droite en Allemagne marquée par le nazisme? » — https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/2025/article/l-extreme-droite-allemande-seduit-malgre-son-passe-nazi-pourquoi-28769921.html
14. European Parliament (ed.), « Intergovernmental decision-making procedures » — https://www.europarl.europa.eu/ftu/pdf/en/FTU_1.2.4.pdf

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Cite as: Coline Eyssautier, "The Imprint of Populism within the New Pact on Migration and Asylum of 2020", PromethEUs, 2026-02-05, https://prometheus-euro.eu/en/news/the-imprint-of-populism-within-the-new-pact-on-migration-and-asylum-of-2020