Fortress Europe: Migration flashpoints in 2025

• EU leaders push for tougher migration rules
• Calls for outsourcing asylum procedures grow
• Rights groups say hard line policies endanger lives

European countries have tightened migration policies, with more changes expected, despite a drop in irregular arrivals last year to the lowest level since 2021.

Elections in 2024 and 2025 have seen far-right, anti-migration parties grow in popularity, and immigration remains a politically charged topic in the bloc's 27 member states.

European countries have stepped up border controls, cracked down on smuggling gangs and outsourced asylum processing, while European Union lawmakers approved a major asylum policy overhaul last year to reduce irregular arrivals.

The new measures will apply from 2026. Right-wing parties say they do not go far enough.

Rights groups say there is an increased risk of arbitrary detention and repatriations to countries where asylum seekers are at risk of violence or unfair imprisonment, while lawyers say there could be an increase in court challenges.

Here's a roundup of European migration flashpoints:

Britain and France

Britain and France in July agreed to a "one-in, one-out" pilot programme to return migrants arriving in small boats, as border forces counted a record number of arrivals across the channel in the first half of the year.

The scheme would see Britain deport undocumented migrants to France in return for accepting an equal number of asylum seekers with British family connections.

The governments in France and Britain face pressure from far-right parties that are rising in polls and pushing for anti-immigrant policies.

Britain's stricter immigration rules will raise the level of English language that immigrants must attain, increase the time it takes to get citizenship and prevent companies, including care homes, from recruiting abroad.

The UK government is also in talks with unspecified countries to send them migrants who have been refused the right to stay in Britain.

In France, the focus is on returns. Deportations rose by nearly a third to 22,000 people last year, official data showed in February.

Rights groups say the new rules put individuals at risk by forcing them to return to unsafe or unstable countries, separated from family and without adequate healthcare.

Germany and Poland 

Germany pledged to strengthen a law to make it harder to smuggle migrants to Britain under a major treaty.

Elected in February, Germany's coalition government has agreed to reject undocumented asylum seekers at borders, enable deportations to Syria and Afghanistan and suspend family reunions. It is also considering plans to process asylum applications abroad.

In July, Poland introduced temporary controls of its borders with Germany and Lithuania as migration fears strain the fabric of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone. It follows similar moves in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

Public debate over migration has become more heated in Poland, with far-right groups launching "citizens' patrols" on the western border.

Poland temporarily suspended the right to asylum last year to prevent migrants illegally crossing the border from Belarus, which has been accused of colluding with Russia to weaponise migration.

Activists say suspending the right to asylum is against the constitution and would force migrants into the hands of people smugglers.

Italy and Greece

Italy became the first EU country to have a non-EU state process migrants on its behalf when Albania agreed last year to host up to 36,000 migrants a year.

Two purpose-built centres received the first migrants in October 2024, but some were returned to Italy within days after an Italian court ruled they could not be held in Albania due to concerns over their legal status.

Rome now plans to transform one of the centres into a repatriation hub, in a bid to overcome the legal hurdles.

Greece, which has seen a rise of arrivals, will stop processing asylum applications from North Africa, the government announced in July.

Spain

In one of Spain's worst flare-ups in recent times, far-right groups clashed with migrants in the southeastern town of Torre Pacheco in July, after a man was attacked by foreigners.

Yet in contrast to other EU countries, Spain has been largely open to migration and its economic benefits, with plans to relocate unaccompanied minors from the Canary islands to the mainland.

It also plans to legalise 300,00 undocumented immigrants a year over the next three years as it seeks to expand its labour force as its population ages. A draft bill is being debated by parliamentary groups.

This article was updated on Monday July 21, 2025 at 15:37 GMT with migration policy developments across Europe.

(Reporting by Joanna Gill in Brussels and Lin Taylor in London; Editing by Ayla Jean Yackley, Jon Hemming and Lyndsay Griffiths.)