Crisis in the European social democratic family. The behavior of the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, positioning herself alongside the Italian Giorgia Meloni in the Ceuta migration crisis, seems to have been the last straw.
The vice president of the European Parliament and member of the PSC-PSOE, Javi López, and the head of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Democratic Party (PD), Beppe Provenzano, have formally protested to the European Socialist Party (PES) for its lack of solidarity, in a very unusual public gesture within the same political family. It is not very common for criticism of this type to be raised and the issue to be addressed in management bodies.
The letter, addressed to the party's president, Swede Stefan Löfven, laments the lack of unity in the party and accuses the Danish leader of having adopted the radical right's framework regarding immigration. According to the text, to which this newspaper has had access, what Frederiksen has done is “unacceptable” because “while another European partner—Pedro Sánchez—was facing exceptional pressure,” a member of his own political family chose to “align himself, in a coordinated manner, with the Italian prime minister.”
For some time now, Frederiksen and Meloni have been working hand in hand to promote their iron fist against immigration in Europe. Both leaders, with an excellent relationship, have been accustomed for more than a year to organizing meetings prior to the European Councils between different European leaders to promote, among other things, centers for deporting immigrants such as those that the Italian has created in Albania. These meetings, which are also attended by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, are increasingly popular and the majority of the leaders of the Twenty-Seven, mostly conservative, are already attending.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is the counterpoint to this political vision and, together with the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron, has criticized the project of fields in third countries. He already had a loud confrontation at the last European meeting in Brussels, in which Frederiksen criticized the regularization of Spanish migrants by considering that a measure of this type also generates consequences for the other Member States.
The grievance has worsened after Frederiksen, a few days ago, launched a letter with Meloni in which they directly linked the increase in irregular immigration with an increase in crime and the “recent pressure on public services and erosion of public trust.” They also called for “increasing expulsions” of people in an illegal situation and establishing “repatriation centers in third countries, as well as other innovative solutions outside Europe.” The Dane, after the massive arrival of some 80,000 migrants to Ceuta at the end of July, had asked the EU to evaluate “all options”, including the suspension of the Schengen area in Spain.
From her position at the head of the Danish Government, the social democratic leader has promoted a series of controversial policies for the European left with respect to immigration. For example, a bonus of 80,000 euros for Syrian families who return to their country, programs to increase the deportations of migrants in an irregular situation, the forced transformation of neighborhoods to avoid “parallel societies” or an agreement with Kosovo to rent cells in its prison to send foreigners who have committed crimes. His party has not hesitated to link crime with migrants of certain origins and at the same time defend that its speech is fully compatible with social democratic values, because they believe that it is a “realistic” approach because the burden of migration “goes against the working class.”
For all these reasons, López and Provenzano conclude that this is not a “one-off disagreement on immigration policy,” but rather a behavior that “has crossed the limits of legitimate political divergence and is generating serious political dysfunctions for our political family as a whole,” they maintain in the letter. In his opinion, in this crisis Spain has demonstrated its "ability to manage an extremely complex situation" and protect an external border of the EU, which is why "responsibility, solidarity and loyalty" is expected from the rest of the European partners, "especially from the social democrats."
The leaders demand from Copenhagen the same supportive behavior that the European allies had during the Lampedusa migration crisis, when some Eastern countries suffered the exploitation of migrants from Belarus, or during Trump's threats to Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, when all the partners - including Spain - stood in defense of Denmark.
“It is necessary to maintain a frank debate about where our common limits lie and about the minimum standards of mutual loyalty and solidarity in which we must all be able to trust,” defend the PSOE and the PD. The question is whether this bad mood within his family partners could get in the way of Frederiksen's future aspirations for European office.
