The politicization of migration and its impact on the European Parliament in the light of the 2024 political campaign

In the last decade, we have observed a sizeable increase in the number of far-right and far-left political parties reaching representation in regional, national and European parliaments and governments throughout Europe and beyond. This recent evolution of extreme political parties’ institutional representation has impacted into, and contributed to, a progressive process of radicalisation of Western politics, mass media and societies. Indeed, although in recent studies, scholars have estimated that these extreme political parties have reached their maximum potential of votes and thus institutional representation, it is worth noting that not only their representativeness, but also the impact that their policies and political claims have on mainstream politics challenge Western liberal democracies. Migration is a clear example of this, since the issue has been high on the European agenda and even "traditional parties" across the political spectrum have included in their political programs the adoption of stricter measures to control (legal and irregular) migration. The aim of this paper is to study the impact that in particular far-right political parties have had in the European Parliament (EP) ‒and European politics at large‒ in the last decade. We will take a closer look at how their electoral successes campaign after campaign have led to the increased fragmentation of the EP and the radicalisation of the views on migration-related initiatives in European politics. In fact, as we will explore in this paper through the lens of politicisation, we observe a contagion effect in the votes on these issues within the EP; a negative trend that seems to be translated into the negotiation of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum ‒at the expense of a more balanced, human rights-centred approach‒ and impact negatively upon the campaign of the 2024 EP election.