The interactive case study session of the UNTOLD Europe Workshop (Brussels, 21 October 2025) translated critical discussions on colonial legacies, migration narratives, gender, and human rights into comparative policy analysis. Participants worked in four groups examining labour migration to Greece, the EU Migration Pact, the EU–Tunisia Memorandum, and Spain–Morocco circular migration schemes. Across cases, recurring patterns emerged: securitization over protection, racialized labour hierarchies, gendered recruitment structures, and externalisation practices rooted in asymmetrical power relations. By combining structural analysis with creative reframing, the session encouraged participants to challenge dominant narratives and articulate rights-based alternatives. The findings underscore how colonial continuities remain embedded in contemporary migration governance—and highlight the need for dignity-centred, inclusive policy approaches across the Euro-Mediterranean space.
Case Study Session Overview
The case study session, held during the UNTOLD Europe Workshop on Migration Narratives on 21 October 2025 in Brussels, constituted a central interactive component of the workshop and was designed to translate the workshop’s conceptual discussions on colonial legacies, migration narratives, gender, and human rights into concrete and comparative analysis.
Participants were divided into four small working groups of 5-person, each focusing on a distinct case reflecting contemporary forms of migration governance and externalisation in the Euro-Mediterranean context. The session combined collective analysis, critical reflection, and creative reframing, encouraging participants to interrogate how historical power asymmetries and colonial continuities remain embedded in current migration frameworks.
Objectives of the Case Study Session
The case study session pursued three interrelated objectives: – To analyse how colonial legacies, racialised hierarchies, and unequal power relations shape present-day migration policies and narratives; – To examine the implications of these frameworks for labour rights, gender equality, and human rights; – To encourage participants to reframe dominant migration narratives and develop alternative, rights-based perspectives.
Structure and Methodology
The session was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, groups familiarised themselves with their assigned case and identified key narrative frames, policy mechanisms, and governance logics. In the second stage, groups shifted from analysis to reflection and creative reframing. Each group concluded by formulating key observations and insights, which were later shared in the closing plenary.
Case Study Groups and Thematic Focus
Group 1: Labour Migration from Egypt and Bangladesh to Greece
This group examined labour migration pathways from Egypt and Bangladesh to Greece, focusing on temporary and irregular labour regimes in sectors such as agriculture and construction. Discussions highlighted how colonial and postcolonial labour hierarchies shape recruitment practices, legal precarity, and working conditions. Particular attention was paid to racialisation, the commodification of migrant labour, and limited access to rights and legal protection.
Group 2: The EU Migration Pact
This group analysed the EU Migration Pact as a framework reshaping migration governance across the European Union. Discussions focused on securitisation, border procedures, and differentiated treatment of migrants, as well as the broader narrative implications of managing migration primarily through control-oriented approaches.
Group 3: The EU–Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding
This group explored the EU–Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding as an example of migration externalisation. The analysis centred on asymmetrical power relations, the delegation of border management, and the implications for accountability and human rights protection.
Group 4: Spain–Morocco Circular Migration
This group focused on Spain–Morocco circular migration schemes, particularly in seasonal agricultural labour. Discussions examined how controlled mobility regimes reproduce colonial patterns of labour extraction, gendered recruitment, and structural dependency.
Conclusion
Across all four case studies, participants identified recurring themes, including the persistence of colonial and racialised hierarchies, the prioritisation of labour and security concerns over rights, and the gendered dimensions of migration governance. The session enabled participants to connect theoretical discussions with concrete cases and to reflect collectively on alternative narratives grounded in dignity and inclusion.
The case study session underscored the value of participatory and comparative analysis in understanding contemporary migration dynamics. By engaging with diverse cases, participants contributed to a shared reflection on how migration narratives can be critically examined and reimagined beyond colonial continuities.
This policy paper, developed from the Untold Europeworkshop (Brussels, 21 October 2025), examines structural imbalances in European migration governance across three domains: circular labour migration, external migration cooperation, and internal EU asylum systems. While each field operates within distinct legal frameworks, comparative analysis reveals a recurring tension between control-oriented management tools and the consistent safeguarding of rights. From employer-dependent seasonal labour schemes to accountability gaps in external partnerships and uneven asylum protection standards within the EU, the findings highlight the need for stronger monitoring, legal clarity, and enforceable safeguards. The paper argues that sustainable migration governance requires integrating mobility management with equal treatment, transparency, and human rights-based benchmarks—ensuring coherence, credibility, and long-term legitimacy across EU migration policies.
Executive Summary
This policy paper synthesises findings from three thematic case studies examined during the Untold Europe workshop in Brussels on 21 October 2025. Each case examined a different layer of European migration governance: circular labour migration, external migration cooperation, and internal asylum governance. Through comparative analysis, the workshop identified recurring structural patterns in how mobility is managed, how responsibilities are distributed, and how protection standards are implemented.
While each policy field has its own legal and institutional logic, the cases revealed common tensions between management objectives and rights safeguards. This paper consolidates those findings into a coherent policy analysis aimed at supporting more balanced, sustainable, and legally consistent migration governance within and beyond the European Union.
Case Study 1 – Circular Labour Migration and Agricultural Work
The first case study focused on circular migration schemes in the agricultural sector, discussed during the workshop as an example of labour mobility designed to address seasonal workforce shortages. Participants examined how such programmes operate in practice, particularly in Southern Europe, and how recruitment, residence status, and working conditions are structured. The discussion highlighted that while these schemes offer employment opportunities and address labour market needs, they frequently rely on highly temporary statuses and employer-dependent residence arrangements.
Workshop participants concluded that this structural design could limit workers’ bargaining power, restrict mobility between employers, and create differentiated access to social and labour rights. The case demonstrated how labour migration governance can unintentionally contribute to segmented labour markets if mobility, equal treatment, and access to remedies are not adequately safeguarded. These findings informed the broader policy recommendation that labour migration frameworks should integrate stronger rights protections alongside economic objectives.
Case Study 2 – External Migration Cooperation and Responsibility Distribution
The second case study addressed EU cooperation with third countries on migration management, examined through the lens of recent partnership frameworks discussed at the workshop. Participants analysed how operational responsibilities related to border control and containment are shared between the EU and partner countries. The discussion focused on governance capacity, accountability mechanisms, and the alignment between financial support and protection standards.
The workshop concluded that external cooperation could contribute to migration management objectives but also creates potential responsibility gaps where monitoring, legal safeguards, and access to remedies are limited. Participants emphasised that policy effectiveness depends not only on reducing movements but also on ensuring that protection outcomes are verifiable and consistent with international and EU legal standards. These conclusions shaped the recommendation that external partnerships should be systematically linked to transparency, independent monitoring, and rights-based benchmarks.
Case Study 3 – Internal EU Asylum Governance and Solidarity Mechanisms
The third case study examined recent developments in EU asylum governance, with particular attention to solidarity mechanisms, procedural harmonisation, and the treatment of vulnerable applicants. Workshop participants explored how reforms aim to improve system functionality and coordination among Member States while managing pressures on national systems.
Discussions highlighted that while solidarity tools are intended to distribute responsibilities more evenly, protection standards and reception conditions remain unevenly implemented across the Union. Participants noted that procedural obligations for asylum seekers are increasingly detailed, whereas enforcement of Member State compliance with protection standards can be inconsistent. The workshop, therefore, concluded that solidarity and system functionality must be closely linked to enforceable protection guarantees to ensure long-term system credibility and legal coherence.
Integrated Analysis
Across the three cases, the workshop identified a shared governance pattern: migration is frequently addressed through instruments designed to manage distribution, containment, and procedural compliance. By contrast, mechanisms ensuring participation, equal treatment, and consistent protection standards often develop more slowly or unevenly.
The comparative discussion showed that these dynamics are not confined to one policy field but arise across labour migration, external cooperation, and asylum governance. This insight underpins the paper’s central argument: strengthening accountability, legal clarity, and rights consistency across all migration governance domains is essential for effective and sustainable policy.
Policy Directions
Building on the workshop conclusions, the paper proposes policy directions aimed at better aligning management tools with protection standards. Strengthened monitoring and accountability mechanisms, clearer procedural standards, and improved access to remedies are key elements across all governance areas.
In labour migration, ensuring mobility rights and equal treatment would support fair labour market outcomes. In external cooperation, linking funding and partnerships to verifiable protection benchmarks would reduce legal and reputational risks. Within the EU, solidarity mechanisms should be directly tied to minimum protection standards to ensure that responsibility-sharing also guarantees rights consistency.
The workshop-based comparative approach demonstrates that structural imbalances between control-oriented measures and protection safeguards can emerge across different migration governance fields. Addressing these imbalances does not require abandoning management objectives but integrating them more closely with legal certainty, accountability, and protection standards.
A more coherent and rights-consistent migration governance framework would strengthen the EU’s capacity to manage migration sustainably and credibly while upholding its legal and normative commitments.
Please cite as: Andersson, Ruben. (2026). “The Illiberal Bargain on Migration.” In: Populism and the Future of Transatlantic Relations: Challenges and Policy Options. (eds). Marianne Riddervold, Guri Rosén and Jessica R. Greenberg. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). January 20, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00136
Abstract Since the 1990s, Western states have pursued a dual migration strategy: economically liberal policies to secure labour supply and hardline measures against ‘unwanted’ migration. The Trump administration has amplified these long-standing tendencies. Across Europe, governments as different as the UK Labour Party and Italy’s Brothers of Italy are cracking down on asylum and maritime arrivals while muddling through on labour migration. Economic and demographic pressures ensure persistent demand for migrant workers, even as short-term politics reward spectacular enforcement campaigns with damaging consequences. What has shifted is the growing centrality of migration as a security domain. Fears of ‘weaponized’ migration in Europe and Trump’s confrontations with origin states show how trade and aid are being deployed to pressure poorer countries into cooperation on control and deportation. Despite hostile rhetoric, the European Union (EU) and the United States are increasingly converging on coercive, illiberal bargains. Whether labour market needs, practical limits or political resistance can soften this trajectory remains uncertain.
After the Cold War, it seemed briefly as if a new ‘borderless’ world was emerging. Yet as the Iron Curtain came down, new barriers appeared at the United States–Mexico border – continuing the ‘securitisation’ of especially Latin American migration pushed by Ronald Reagan’s administration in the 1980s. In the European Union, securitization accompanied the establishment of a shared external border. In both cases, a security approach to migration emerged as the liberal vision of free trade and openness ran into deep contradictions. Yet this ‘security model’ has failed. This failure, in turn, has contributed to rising political fervour – fuelling, in the process, even more demand for border security.
Notably,the ‘security model’ short-circuited ordinary political procedure. Measures were frequently pushed through from the top with little democratic scrutiny. Externally, it involved strengthening the repressive apparatus of ‘partner states’. Rather than bolstering democratic values, ‘border security first’ increasingly eroded their importance – as seen most starkly in the European Union’s (EU) collaboration with repressive regimes.
Domestically, ‘border security first’ hindered a robust democratic debate over the realities of migration. In the United States, border enforcement was a stopgap measure to address a central contradiction of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): capital and goods moved frictionlessly while workers did not. In the EU, border security similarly rose as a simple ‘fix’ when member states failed to enact a functioning common migration or asylum policy to accompany their new borderless area of free movement and trade.
In the process, a two-faced migration regime was consolidating on both sides of the Atlantic. The promotion of a globalized economy – including for large-scale labour migration – was accompanied by an increased, if selective, securitization of poorer overland migrants and asylum seekers from the south. The two sides of the transatlantic relationship, insofar as migration was concerned, seemed to move as much in lockstep as in other domains such as trade, finance and international security.
These recent historical patterns reveal some remarkable continuities in the politics of migration across the Atlantic. However, in recent years the ‘security model’ against unwanted migration has gained increasing salience despite solid evidence that it has tended to fuel border chaos and stronger smuggling networks while eroding fundamental rights and liberties. The crisis footing over migration has been central to rising ‘populist’ or authoritarian sentiment, to the point where its framing and ‘solutions’ are increasingly mainstream. While this tendency has become especially stark under the second Donald J. Trump presidency, the EU and many of its member states are equally wedded to the security model. Meanwhile, the failure to adequately account for the structural determinants of migration – the supply and demand of labour, deep demographic and economic imbalances, and drivers of forced displacement – will continue to haunt politics on both sides of the Atlantic. The risk is that, on current trends, this ‘unresolved business’ will keep fuelling demand for authoritarian ‘solutions’. Here governments may not simply keep ‘muddling through’ but actively shift towards a renewal of transatlantic relations through hard securitization – including, besides vast investments in rearmament and surveillance, the securitization of mobility on a much wider scale.
The chapter will compare migration politics in the United States and at the EU’s southern external border since the 1990s. We will examine one emblematic case, Spain, which became an important immigration destination around this time. As elsewhere in Europe, both conservative and socialist governments responded to this shift in part by securitizing numerically small movements of African migrants and asylum seekers towards Spanish land and sea borders – a pattern replicated on a much larger scale at the US–Mexico border. The security model has fed further border crises in both cases, while overall migration has continued to fluctuate in response to structural factors, with border security itself providing further impetus for undocumented migration. Next, we shift focus to the present Trump administration and to the increasingly nationalist politics of Europe, showing how the security approach has fed on its own failures while opening a window for radical offerings from the ‘new right’. Throughout, we must understand US and European migration regimes as intertwined: rhetoric, expertise and technology have travelled across the Atlantic while buttressing an increasingly shared political outlook, with one partial exception: Spain itself, which in recent years has opted for a more liberal approach.
Europe’s Two-faced Migration Regime Since the 1990s
A small Spanish enclave at the tip of North Africa is emblematic of the challenges in managing the EU’s external border. At the ‘autonomous city’ of Ceuta, one of the EU’s only two land borders in Africa, Europe erected its first border barriers against migration in the 1990s. Since this time, each new measure at the border has fuelled more dangerous entry methods, as the guards themselves point out. The fences were soon being breached en masse, similarly to the ‘kamikaze runs’ taking place at the San Diego–Tijuana border. When Madrid announced it would reinforce the barrier in 2005, migrants took their chance. The result was one of Europe’s earliest ‘border crises’: an event in which at least fourteen migrants were killed in gunfire, with many more expelled deep into the Sahara desert.
Since that time, crises have periodically recurred. However, this has not stopped Ceuta’s barrier from becoming a prototype for fences that today stretch from Greece to Finland. Spain also provided Europe with a model for ‘externalizing’ controls to African states, first in Morocco and later, when routes shifted due to post-2005 crackdowns, to West Africa.
Meanwhile, Spain pursued diplomatic efforts that fed into the Europeanization of border management. The Frontex agency conducted its first notable operations off the Canary Islands, where the next ‘migration crisis’ occurred in 2006, itself a knock-on effect of the 2005 crackdowns. EU initiatives on border security, development, and even ‘mobility partnerships’ multiplied – a process driven partly by member states such as Spain, keen to offer aid and diplomatic relations in exchange for African states agreeing to patrol migration routes and accept deportees. The carrots-and-sticks approach – articulated by European governments at a 2002 summit in Seville – seemed to offer a ‘solution’ that paired border security with opportunities for cross-regional collaboration.
In the intervening period, the Spanish economy continued to grow at a febrile pace. Amid demographic imbalances and strong labour demand, migrant workers were desperately needed. Madrid ensured a steady supply of workers, especially from Latin America, Eastern Europe and even Morocco. In this context, the spectacle of border enforcement allowed politicians to show a ‘tough’ line on migration while simultaneously encouraging large-scale labour immigration. This disproportionate concern over the external border was a Europe-wide phenomenon: indeed, already in the 1990s, northern European states had been leaning on their southern counterparts to enforce strict measures. Spain also remained emblematic of the wider European ‘muddling through’ on migration as it launched regularization campaigns and released boat arrivals from detention with a deportation order, free to join the informal economy. The two-faced migration regime kept the economy thrumming and the borders ‘secure’ – sending a mixed message picked up in origin states and among European voters.
To critics in politics, advocacy and academia, a small minority of migrants and asylum seekers were seeing their basic rights sacrificed as they faced dangerous expulsions into desert areas by partner forces or extremely risky sea crossings in attempts to evade patrols and radar systems. The heightened salience of a small – and clearly racialized – minority of migrants was, at the same time, channelling right-wing ‘populist’ sentiment towards the borders, fuelling demand for further crackdowns. Meanwhile, deaths owing to ‘Fortress Europe’ policies since 1993 have been estimated at more than 66,000 – a staggering figure (United Against Refugee Deaths 2025).
The United States: A Model of Mismanagement?
A similar trend could be observed in the United States. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, similar to Spanish efforts, offered an amnesty to undocumented migrants while paving the way for further crackdowns. President Ronald Reagan hardened rhetoric as he called undocumented migration ‘a threat to national security’ with ‘terrorists and subversives… just two days’ driving time’ from the Texas border – echoing Trump’s later pronouncements (Massey 2015, 288). By the 1990s, army surplus landing mats were stood on their ends outside San Diego to form the first rudimentary border barrier (Harding 2012, 91). Border security operations started multiplying while collaboration deepened with Mexico and Central American states – replicating the ‘externalization’ pattern of Euro–African relations.
Unlike those in Europe, migration flows across the southern US border were of a different magnitude. Very much like in Europe, however, Washington was ‘muddling through’ as it tried at once to satisfy labour needs and project selective toughness. The resulting ‘border game’ (Andreas 2000) offered a stark contrast with the post-Second World War approach. The bracero program – a bilateral agreement between the United States and Mexico that began in 1942 to address wartime US labour shortages and allowed millions of Mexicans to work legally in the United States as seasonal agricultural labourers – had once provided legal pathways for labour migration. Once it ended in the 1960s, irregular migration rose correspondingly as legal routes were replaced by illegal ones (Massey et al. 2015). As border enforcement saw vast sums of investment from the 1980s onwards, migrants still kept arriving – only now, they were easier to exploit.
As in Europe, border security was deployed as a solution to an eminently political problem: it papered over the cracks and contradictions of a ‘free’ transnational market – a market that, through NAFTA, was leading to a ‘migration hump’ as many Mexicans left amid shifting economic opportunities. After 9/11, securitization escalated under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. However, the tremendous efforts did not halt deaths or irregular migration. In 1986, there were some two million undocumented migrants in the United States; after years of heavy border security investment, in 2008, there were twelve million (Massey et al. 2015). Many of these were migrants who no longer felt it safe to return to Mexico after the agricultural season, owing to the fences and patrols. Each new border crisis kept feeding demand for more border security, opening further avenues for authoritarian and right-wing forces to propose ways for breaking the stalemate.
Post-2008: Securitization Gains Momentum
After the financial crisis, the path dependency of the security model was strengthened on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, immigration reform became increasingly contingent on ploughing even more funding into border security. While the political battles played out along broadly familiar lines, the underlying security model remained bipartisan, as revealed by Senate wranglings over draconian immigration bills or indeed the record three million people removed under the Obama administration (Foley 2013).
Yet in the early 2010s, Mexican immigration was in fact falling due primarily to demographic and economic factors. Migrant apprehensions were at their lowest numbers in about forty years (WOLA 2025). The security model was taking on a momentum of its own, irrespective of actual migration figures or its actual results.
In Europe, the security model received great impetus from the 2015 border crisis, when record numbers crossed the Mediterranean via Türkiye and Libya. Frontex began operations with a modest budget of €19 million in 2006: by 2022, it had reached €750 million. The allocation to Frontex was but a small part of the expenditure on the national level, or the cost of externalizing controls. The security model was building further momentum via attempts by both ‘partner states’ and hostile actors to use irregular migration as a bargaining chip with Brussels and EU capitals. Favours included financial disbursements – such as €1 billion in aid for Niger, the exact sum it had asked for in 2016 ‘to fight clandestine migration’, or the much larger aid deal struck with Türkiye (Financial Times 2016). It also included political favours, such as Spain’s acquiescence to Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara as quid pro quo for Rabat playing its on-again-off-again role as Europe’s ‘gendarme.’
In sum, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic converged around a two-faced migration regime: feeding migrants into their labour-hungry economies on the one hand, including illegalized workers who could be readily exploited, and launching tough-seeming crackdowns at physical borders and in third countries, on the other. The result was a growing enforcement industry and a self-sustaining spiral of securitization. In this spiral, there was eventually one clear winner: the challengers on the hard or new right, which actively played the two sides of the border regime against one another – using overall immigration figures as an argument for more crackdowns at external land and sea borders, for instance, or using the frequent crises at those borders as a justification for saying the whole migration system (and by implication, its mainstream political architects) was compromised.
2020s: Total Security
Even as political challengers started becoming more vocal – including in the United Kingdom’s Brexit campaign, in the first Trump presidency, or in the rise of right-wing authoritarian forces across continental Europe – one could still see much transatlantic ‘muddling through’ on migration. However, the two-faced migration regime is tilting further towards securitization. The impetus is not only coming from the Trump administration or from Europe’s authoritarian right. Centrist European governments are also adopting similar rhetoric and objectives, while increasingly following the new right’s lead. Instead of sating popular demand for more border control, however, they contribute to an uncontrollable appetite for more security and for more hard-right solutions.
In the EU, policymakers are increasingly painting migration as a security problem. Measures include crackdowns on ‘instrumentalized’ migration – the tactic of using migrants as a bargaining chip, which developed in direct response to Europe’s migration-induced panic. Even so, governments still adhere to the two-faced migration regime in important respects – including Italy’s ‘populist’ right-wing government, which has opened legal migration pathways into sectors with labour shortages paired with harder crackdowns in the Mediterranean.
In the United States, Trump has shifted focus inland. Raids on homes and workplaces have targeted green card holders and blue-chip technology companies (Financial Times 2025). European visitors have been caught up in crackdowns, adding potential transatlantic friction. Overall, the securitization of US cities and workers shows how the security model increasingly ‘trumps’ the economy. In the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ of 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) alone received an estimated $37.5 billion a year while its watchdog was gutted, citizenship-stripping came up for discussion, and the courts and Congress let checks and balances melt away – creating, as one commentator put it, a ‘security state within a state’ (Luce 2025).
On both sides of the Atlantic, there are again some clear winners. First, the hard or far right, which always offers more convincing ‘security theatre’. Second, the defence, security and detention–deportation industries, which are seeing a staggering surge in demand. And third, the human smugglers, who have found themselves with a captive market – a lesson that has consistently been ignored despite clear evidence that criminal syndicates have grown stronger and more predatory on the back of enforcement efforts (Andersson 2024).
Where Next?
The two-faced migration regime has proven remarkably long-lived, as even the most hardline governments struggle to square the circle of economic realities and security politics. However, we may also discern not just a quantitative but a qualitative shift in the security model. Migration is becoming central to how ‘security’ is envisioned, and this is occurring in transatlantic dialogue. We see this, for instance, in the geopolitics of bargaining with migrants played by the Trump administration with origin and ‘dumping’ countries, or in the very similar deals being crafted by the EU and its member states. We see it, notably, in how the earlier emphasis on development and human security, especially in the EU case, has melted away. Even a classical ‘security crisis’ – Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – has increasingly been framed in terms of ‘instrumentalized’ movements of desperate people.
The Trump administration likes to lecture ‘liberal’ Europe on sleepwalking into an ‘invasion’ – deploying rhetoric not dissimilar to that of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi when he once used racist language to threaten Europe over engineered migration flows. Yet the rhetorical smoke hides the reality of increasing convergence around treating migration as a security domain. The security model is now hitting legal migrants, permanent residents and sometimes even citizens with invasive surveillance and control. Meanwhile, both the United States and European actors engage in lopsided bargaining with poorer states over responsibility for migration and asylum, ‘instrumentalising’ migrants for domestic and geopolitical ends.
Some dampers exist, especially in the EU, where some aspects of the Union and some member states (Spain being one) hold out for a more liberal approach. In fact, one main risk of a breakdown in transatlantic relations comes from the Trump administration’s putting its thumb on the scale in favour of far-right challengers while undermining checks and balances. Yet for now, the transatlantic bargain is developing, much as in the military domain, with Europe enthusiastically following through on further securitization. While we continue to see much ‘muddling through’ domestically, we are also seeing signs of a ‘renewal’ of transatlantic relations around an illiberal bargain that construes migration as a threat and refugees and migrants as bargaining chips in the international arena.
The Path Forward
For those who wish to reverse this trend, a few things should take priority:
1.Establish a civil liberties compact in the interest of citizens and foreigners alike.
As we can start to discern both in the ICE raids in the United States and in various European initiatives of control and surveillance, efforts to securitize migration eventually start hitting the wider social fabric and affecting citizens’ liberties as well, while frequently fuelling an anxiety that benefits the far right.A compact on liberties can ensure that the EU’s ‘area of freedom, security and justice’ becomes concrete and meaningful for all residents. Baking in privacy and civil liberties safeguards into new control proposals is a start, as even some of the architects of the US homeland security state are now acknowledging.Enshrining such safeguards would show that the EU is still keeping some faith in small-l liberal values – a project that may surprisingly appeal to many of the voters flocking to the new right, who, on the whole, are worried about state surveillance and overreach.
2. Rework relationships with ‘partner states.’
The European externalization of controls has led to a ceding of control to neighbouring states, who have consistently used migration fears to extract political or economic concessions (Chebel d’Appollonia 2012). As border guards themselves recognize, it is a game the Europeans are increasingly losing. Here is an opportunity to shift to a more positive, pragmatic footing. It is in the gift of Brussels and member states to shift the equation back towards economic cooperation, humanitarian and peacebuilding support and reaffirmed democratic rights – but this will require some heavy lifting, including a revival of refugee resettlement programmes offering an alternative to displaced people and some goodwill to the world’s largest refugee hosts in Africa and Asia.
3. Foster positive foreign policy coherence.
The EU and its member states can gear foreign policy towards less distress-inducing migration, not more, as is so frequently the case. The 2015 spike in arrivals was in no small part a knock-on effect of NATO’s disastrous Libya intervention. While the chaos spurred large-scale departures from the country, Russia saw the risk of regime change elsewhere and scaled up involvement in Syria’s civil war. Geopolitical bargaining with Syrian refugees followed. Today, EU support for Israeli war crimes in Gaza may not be adding pressure to Europe’s borders – given the particularities of that context, and the lock-in of its bombarded inhabitants – yet the pattern remains: of foreign policy choices fuelling forced displacement rather than addressing it.
4. Strengthen the social model.
The EU could be bold and see migration as an opportunity and a source of enrichment. Instead, it has frequently been handled terribly poorly through the two-faced migration regime – as a security problem on the one hand, and as a source of use-and-discard labour on the other. The security model, in other words, distracts from the need to strengthen labour protections. A smart policy would be to turn this around. In fact, a de-securitization of migration can occur in tandem with a strengthening of social security.
This strengthening would entail adequate labour standards and fair pay for citizens and migrants alike; fortifying the welfare state and so creating attractive jobs; cracking down on unscrupulous employers, not employees; and providing genuine rights for people fleeing persecution through safe routes rather than via the heavily policed borderlands that feed the smuggling economy and partner-state brinkmanship. Such controls would provide pathways to genuine ‘integration’ rather than generating just-in-time labour pools. Paired with targeted funds for local areas where migrants concentrate – as well as sensible policies for ensuring everyone does not end up in the same place – this will reduce costs and increase benefits for citizens. It may well put a damper on international movement as people respond to reduced labour demand. Incidentally, however, this may also help origin countries struggling with large outflows of their working population through unsafe routes. It will also offer migrants a genuine and safe alternative.
It is notable that border guards themselves are alive to the unsustainability of the two-faced border regime and its increasingly illiberal tilt. At Ceuta, the Civil Guard chief presiding over Europe’s first border fences told the author in 2023 that migration had to be returned to the political fold. However, in his view, there was a ‘political cost’ that no government wanted to assume in creating regular labour migration. The EU, he suggested, could recruit workers into seasonal agricultural programmes or develop other pathways that could compete with ‘irregular migration’. At the moment, he noted, there was no competition. Unfortunately, in the political sphere as well, there is increasingly no competing perspective against the disastrous security model, even as it extends its reach ever further into everyday life and into international relations. So far, the only real political winner in the securitization arena is the authoritarian right. For the EU project, and certainly for progressive and liberal actors within it, this should be the time to find a better, more rational, and more humane model that competes with the vision offered by right-wing authoritarian forces and their backers across the Atlantic.
(*) Ruben Andersson is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Department of International Development, University of Oxford. His research has focused on migration, borders and security, with specific reference to the Sahel and southern Europe. He is the author of Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe (California 2014), No Go World: How Fear is Redrawing Our Maps and Infecting Our Politics (California 2019) and, together with David Keen, Wreckonomics: Why it’s Time to End the War on Everything (Oxford 2023). He is currently Principal Investigator on a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, which will result in the book Age of Security, forthcoming in 2026 with HarperCollins.
References
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In this Voice of Youth (VoY) article, Emmanouela Papapavlou delivers a powerful reflection on state violence, immigration enforcement, and the fragile boundaries of democratic accountability. The article critically examines the fatal shooting of a civilian woman by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. Moving beyond official narratives of “self-defense,” Papapavlou situates the incident within broader patterns of institutional violence, racialized enforcement, and the erosion of human rights under the banner of security. By drawing historical parallels to the killing of George Floyd and interrogating the politics of “law and order,” the piece challenges readers to reconsider whose lives are protected—and whose are rendered expendable—in contemporary democracies.
By Emmanouela Papapavlou*
In a world where the concept of “security” weighs increasingly heavily on public policy, the use of state violence remains one of the most contentious and polarizing issues. In recent days, news that an agent of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed a 37 year-old woman in Minneapolis has reignited the debate over the limits of state power, institutional impunity, and human rights in one of the world’s most developed democracies.
The incident took place on January 7, 2026, during a large-scale operation aimed at enforcing immigration law in the city. Official statements from government authorities described the shooting as an act of self-defense, claiming that the woman attempted to “strike officers” with her vehicle. At the same time, however, video footage and eyewitness accounts contradict this version of events, suggesting that the gunshot was fired as the driver was attempting to leave the scene, without an evident and immediate threat to the officers’ lives.
The government’s effort to justify the action, even employing language such as “domestic terrorism operation,” has sparked outrage and skepticism among local officials, human rights organizations, and ordinary citizens. The mayor of Minneapolis openly stated that the self-defense arguments were “false” and called for ICE to withdraw from the city altogether. Many have described the killing as a clear example of excessive use of force by state authorities, particularly within the context of a large enforcement mission that disproportionately targets vulnerable communities.
But can this case truly be treated as an isolated incident? Or does it represent yet another link in a growing chain of violent encounters that follow a disturbingly familiar pattern? The Minneapolis killing is already being described as at least the fifth fatal outcome of similar federal operations over the past two years, suggesting that law enforcement strategy has evolved into an aggressive and dangerous form of violence, often exercised without meaningful accountability or transparency.
Social scientists and activists point out that the use of force by state authorities, whether in immigration enforcement or neighborhood policing, frequently activates deeper structures of social inequality. When the rhetoric of “law and order” is prioritized over human safety, trust between state institutions and the communities they serve erodes rapidly. And this raises a fundamental question: is the principle of “legality” applied equally to everyone, or is it selectively deployed as a tool of control and discipline over specific social groups?
This case cannot be examined outside its broader historical context. In 2020, in the same city of Minneapolis, George Floyd was killed as a police officer pressed a knee into his neck, turning a routine arrest into a public execution witnessed by the world. That moment became a global symbol of systemic police violence and racial injustice, igniting mass protests and exposing how deeply embedded power, race, and state violence are within modern societies.
And yet, how much has truly changed since then? Even today, the way state violence is addressed, whether through policing or immigration enforcement, continues to be shaped by the same logic that transforms people into threats and human lives into acceptable risks. The stories of those killed become symbols not only of injustice, but of a persistent institutional indifference toward the protection of life and dignity.
The Minneapolis case therefore serves as a reminder that violence exercised by institutions is not merely a “tragic mistake” or an “unfortunate exception.” It is part of a broader relationship between power and vulnerability that tests the very foundations of democracy and human rights. And just as in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, a new generation is once again refusing to accept narratives that normalize violence in the name of security. A generation that insists on asking the same uncomfortable question: what does security really mean, when preserving it requires the loss of human life?
(*)Emmanouela Papapavlou is a high school student from Thessaloniki, Greece, deeply passionate about social and political issues. She has actively participated in Model United Nations and other youth forums, serving as a chairperson in multiple conferences and winning awards in Greek debate competitions. Writing is her greatest passion, and she loves using it to explore democracy, civic engagement, and human rights. Her dream is to share her ideas, inspire action, and amplify the voices of young people who want to make a difference. Email: emmanpapapavlou@gmail.com
Please cite as: Andits, Petra. (2026). “Alcoholic Mobsters and Welfare Criminals: Xenophobia, Welfare Chauvinism and Populism in Gyurcsány Ferenc’s Facebook Posts on Ukrainian Citizens Prior to the War.” Journal of Populism Studies (JPS). January 5, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/JPS000122
Abstract This article examines how anti-Ukrainian sentiment was mobilized within Hungarian opposition politics prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Focusing on Gyurcsány Ferenc’s 2018 parliamentary election campaign, it analyzes two widely circulated Facebook posts that portrayed Ukrainians as welfare abusers and criminal outsiders. The article demonstrates how xenophobia, welfare chauvinism, and populist political style were combined through visual and narrative strategies to generate moral panic. By situating these representations in relation to Gyurcsány’s post-2022 pro-Ukrainian positioning, the study shows how Ukraine-related narratives function as strategically redeployable political resources rather than stable ideological commitments.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the publication of academic articles, books, and policy briefs focusing on Ukraine has proliferated. In this paper, I discuss the campaign of Gyurcsány Ferenc, the most prominent figure of the Hungarian opposition in 2018, leading up to the 2018 parliamentary elections and I argue that anti-Ukrainian sentiment constituted a significant building block of the campaign. In particular, I examine two infamous Facebook posts on Ukrainians posted by the politician. I investigate how Ukrainians were perceived outside the Russian–Ukrainian context and analyze the historical, cultural, and political references that they evoked. Specifically, I shall investigate three elements of the campaign: xenophobia, welfare chauvinism, and, above all, populism.
The campaign was not only deeply xenophobic but also deployed well-worn welfare-chauvinistic criticisms against Ukrainian citizens: ‘Do you agree that Ukrainian citizens who have never paid pension contributions in Hungary should not be allowed to receive pensions in Hungary?’ Gyurcsány asks voters, having announced in 2018 at the enlarged inaugural meeting of the DK National Council that a petition to this effect would be launched. He stated that hordes of Ukrainians enter Hungary and illegally claim pensions and, subsequently, citizenship rights.
The campaign – and the Facebook posts, in particular – also echoed essentially populist undertones. Interestingly, to date, Gyurcsány’s populist rhetoric has gone entirely unexamined, highlighting a key shortcoming of populist research, whereby the heterogeneity in what may be categorized as ‘populist’ rhetoric is underexplored (Kovács et al., 2022). I argue that ‘populism’ can take various shapes and often operates in accordance with a place-based logic that does not necessarily echo official political discourses (ibid). The Facebook posts reveal a populist moral struggle in which the popular hero (Gyurcsány himself) defeats the devil (Ukrainian welfare criminals backed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán), and features urgency, crisis, and simplistic solutions – well-known ingredients in populist rhetoric.
The Demokratikus Koalíció’s narrative about Ukrainian pension fraud began to surface near the end of the 2018 election campaign A particularly striking aspect of the campaign is its intentional merging of two wholly distinct issues: first, the planned citizenship rights for minority Hungarians in Ukraine and, second, the pension benefits that some Ukrainians receive from the Hungarian state. Around that time, Orbán was engaged in initial negotiations with the Ukrainian authorities concerning the question of whether dual citizenship should be granted to minority Hungarians. These negotiations were sensitive, given that Ukraine does not allow dual citizenship, and the alignment between Orbán and Russia’s Vladimir Putin further overshadowed the talks. Hungary also has a treaty with Ukraine, based on a 1963 intergovernmental agreement with the Soviet Union, according to which retired Ukrainian citizens who reside permanently in Hungary can apply to have their pensions paid there in Hungarian forints (HUF) (Caglar et al., 2011).
The Hungarian pension system does not simply convert their Ukrainian pensions into HUF but rather determines the amount on the basis of the beneficiary’s former employment using Hungarian mechanisms, as if they had worked in Hungary throughout their lives. This special pension entitlement is associated with residence and ostensibly has nothing to do with Hungarian citizenship,[i] given that any Ukrainian citizen with a permanent address in Hungary is eligible to receive it. Nevertheless, the opposition has intentionally blurred the two issue and incited an anti-Ukrainian hysteria.
In this paper, I have selected for analysis two consecutively published Facebook posts from the campaign in which Gyurcsány disseminated visual materials pertaining to Ukrainian migrants in Hungary. The first is a fact-finding video, entitled ‘In search of the 300,000 Ukrainian pensions’ and featuring Gyurcsány in the guise of a private detective[ii]; the other is a short educational cartoon.[iii] The posts sparked controversy and criticism both in Hungary and from Ukrainian officials, who accused Gyurcsány of spreading false information and promoting anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Hungary.[iv]The incident proved highly significant, as the first video became the second most-watched Hungarian political video of all time on social media,[v] surpassing, for instance, any video made by Orbán.
(*) Dr. Petra Andits is MSCA Seal of Excellence Fellow at the Free University of Bolzano where she leads a project on the emergence of sexual populism in Hungary in the context of migration. Petra is cultural anthropologist by training and holds a Ph.d. in Political and Social Inquiry from the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She was research fellow at various universities, among them Universidad Pompeu Fabra in Spain, Tel Aviv University, University of Granada, Ca’Foscari University in Italy as well as the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She is also an experienced ethnographic and documentary film maker. Email: anditspetra@gmail.com; ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9448-7611
In this timely and powerful Voice of Youth (VoY) essay, Emmanouela Papapavlou reframes migration not as a crisis or threat, but as a defining human reality of the twenty-first century. Moving beyond populist slogans and fear-based rhetoric, the piece exposes the gap between political discourse and the lived experiences of migrants—marked by legal precarity, exclusion, and everyday vulnerability. It critically interrogates the selective use of “legality” in public debates and highlights how populism redirects anger away from power and toward the powerless. Importantly, the article identifies Generation Z as a potential counterforce, emphasizing its everyday engagement with diversity and its rejection of xenophobic narratives. Published on the occasion of International Migrants Day, the essay is a compelling call to restore dignity, humanity, and ethical responsibility to migration politics.
By Emmanouela Papapavlou*
In an age of global instability, migration is not an exception and not some marginal social phenomenon, it is a defining feature of the modern world. Wars, political persecution, economic collapse, environmental disasters and inequality push millions to leave their homes in search of safety, opportunity, and a sense of dignity. Within this reality, the 18th of December, International Migrants Day, is not just another “awareness day,” it is a powerful reminder that migration is one of the most central human experiences of the twenty-first century, and that the way we talk about it in public spaces has real consequences on real lives.
Despite its profoundly human dimension, migration has become one of the most polarized subjects in global politics. Populist rhetoric, flourishing across Europe, the United States, and beyond, finds in the “migrant” the perfect target, an “other” onto whom fears, insecurities, and imagined threats can be projected. Migrants are framed as a faceless mass, as an economic burden, as a cultural threat, or even as enemies of national security. Yet the reality of migration is dramatically different from these oversimplified narratives.
For millions, migration is not a choice, it is a necessity. And for those who manage to reach countries of arrival, the journey does not end, it begins. Access to legal documents, endless visa backlogs, the slow and often arbitrary asylum process, and the requirements for work authorization create a system that is frequently insurmountable. In the United States, for example, hundreds of thousands of people live for years without papers, not because they refuse to comply, but because the system is designed to delay, discourage, and exclude. Even proving that you qualify for asylum often requires documents that no one could possibly rescue while fleeing a bombed home or a collapsing life.
While political discourse focuses obsessively on “flows” and “invasions,” what almost never gets discussed is the actual everyday reality of migrants, the labor exploitation, the lack of access to healthcare or education, the constant uncertainty of “will I be allowed to stay tomorrow,” the threat of deportation, the social stigma, the ghettoization, the absence of meaningful integration. Many states treat migration as a problem that must be “controlled,” not as a social fact that must be understood, integrated, and addressed with humanity.
International Migrants Day exists precisely because of this gap, the gap between rhetoric and reality, between what is said and what people live. It is a day dedicated to rights and dignity, to the fundamental right to move and to the right to live without fear. It is also a reminder that societies do not show their humanity in how they treat the powerful, but in how they treat the vulnerable.
Here we see another dimension of populism, the selective invocation of “legality.” Public debate suddenly fills with people who appear deeply committed to the rule of law when the conversation turns to migrants. “They came illegally,” they say, as if respect for the law were a consistent personal value and not something invoked only when convenient. Because the same people who express moral outrage at a refugee are often the same people who consider underage drinking normal, who speed on the highway, who drive under the influence, who use recreational substances, who pirate movies, music, and games without a second thought. In those cases, the law becomes a “technicality,” and strictness evaporates.
Yet when the “offender” is someone who ran from war, when it is a mother holding a child in a boat, when it is a young person who left everything behind just to survive, then suddenly the law becomes absolute and unforgiving. And even worse, we almost never see the same outrage when the offenders are powerful, corrupt politicians who steal public funds, evade taxes, exploit systems for personal gain, or embezzle compensations. In those situations, anger disappears. Outrage fades. “Illegality” becomes almost invisible.
This contradiction has nothing to do with the law. It has everything to do with control, with fear, and with the political function of populism, which is to divert collective anger away from those who cause injustice, and direct it instead toward those who are least able to defend themselves.
Yet within this landscape, there is a source of hope, and it comes from Generation Z. Gen Z is the first generation in history to grow up fully online, exposed every day to the lives of people across the world, from every background and every context. Diversity is not perceived as a threat; it is an intrinsic part of reality. For this generation, multiculturalism is not an ideological position, it is the texture of daily life in schools, universities, neighborhoods, and digital spaces.
Young people do not see migrants as outsiders, they are classmates, friends, coworkers, neighbors. They are the stories shared on social media, the voices heard without intermediaries, the people facing the same universal anxieties, work, education, safety, rights. Take the example of someone like Zohran Mamdani, who arrived in the United States as a child refugee and eventually became an elected representative in New York. His story is not an exception, it is a sign of a new era in which identity is shaped not by where you were born, but by who you are and what you contribute to your community.
What becomes clear is that Gen Z, through everyday contact with diverse cultures and people, rejects fear based rhetoric. They are not easily persuaded by politicians who weaponize xenophobia, and they do not accept narratives of “threat” without question. They see migration as a human reality, not as a tool for propaganda. And this generational shift carries enormous political weight for the future.
If we truly want to honor International Migrants Day, it is not enough to acknowledge its existence. We must promote policies that allow for safe, legal, and humane migration, support integration programs that go beyond survival and lead to participation and dignity, reform asylum and legalization systems so they do not trap people in bureaucratic limbo, and build societies that recognize diversity not as a danger but as a collective strength.
Because at the end of the day, the question we must ask is simple, and its simplicity is what makes it so revealing: How can a human being be considered “illegal” on an earth we were all born into? How can anyone be treated as worthless simply because they were born a few kilometers away?
If we cannot answer that clearly, then perhaps International Migrants Day exists to remind us that before borders, politics, and identities, we are, above all, human.
(*)Emmanouela Papapavlou is a high school student from Thessaloniki, Greece, deeply passionate about social and political issues. She has actively participated in Model United Nations and other youth forums, serving as a chairperson in multiple conferences and winning awards in Greek debate competitions. Writing is her greatest passion, and she loves using it to explore democracy, civic engagement, and human rights. Her dream is to share her ideas, inspire action, and amplify the voices of young people who want to make a difference. Email: emmanpapapavlou@gmail.com
Murphey, Helen L. (2025). “Civilizational Populism and Migration Diplomacy: Tunisia, the European Union, and Italy.”Journal of Populism Studies (JPS). November 23, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/JPS000121
Abstract
Civilizational populists prioritize territorial sovereignty in their approach to migration. In instances of North-South inequality, however, transit countries may be incentivized to accede to ideologically unpalatable agreements. To understand how these compromises are legitimized, this paper analyses Tunisia’s negotiations with the European Union following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in July 2023 that laid the foundations for cooperation over irregular migration. The deal faced challenges on both the Tunisian and EU sides. Tunisian president Kais Saied, a civilizational populist, chafed at perceived EU paternalism and threats to Tunisia’s sovereignty. The deal was also controversial within the EU due to the Saied regime’s human rights violations, which led to further scrutiny of the Tunisian government’s migration management practices. This article finds that Italy’s mediation, spearheaded by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, was successful in addressing these tensions. By positioning Italy as separate from EU paternalism through a shared framework informed by civilizational populism, Saied could justify engaging in positive-sum diplomacy with the Meloni government and symbolically dispel perceptions of diplomatic asymmetry.
Keywords:migration, European Union, Tunisia, populist foreign policy, Italy
By Helen L. Murphey*
Introduction
In April 2024, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met with Tunisian President Kais Saied for the fourth time in a year. The visit was presented as a success: the two leaders vowed to deepen cooperation, notably over migration, based on the principle of mutual benefit (Gasteli & Kaval, 2024). This successful outcome followed a tumultuous negotiation period with the European Union over a joint approach to migration governance, as some European Union members drew attention to Tunisia’s human rights record, and Saied reiterated his refusal to act as Europe’s border patrol (Dahmani, 2024).
A closer examination of Italy’s role in facilitating EU-Tunisian cooperation over migration helps unpack how populists use foreign policy to preserve sovereignty and mount a symbolic defense of an embattled national identity. It is a truism that populists tend to pursue foreign policy programs that strengthen national sovereignty at the expense of greater long-term international cooperation. This pattern is particularly pronounced when authoritarian populists are driven by strong ethnonationalist concerns, resulting in a reticence to adopt policy positions that might benefit other nations or minority groups (Wajner et al., 2024: 1825). Many such ethnonationalist populist actors can be identified as civilizational populists (Morieson, 2023), a phenomenon referring to populists around the world who adopt a culturalized understanding of the ‘people’ as belonging to a civilizational heritage (Yilmaz & Morieson, 2022b). Such rhetoric allows for boundaries to be drawn between insiders and outsiders that imply a concern with race and demography while instead using the language of culture and civilizational continuity (Mandelc, 2025). This both draws on nationalist tropes while also transcending them through reference to a more grandiose imaginary (Brubaker, 2017: 1211).
For such actors, migration forms a particularly potent issue. Not only is it is seen to threaten the ‘purity’ of the nation or region’s people, but it also is typically associated with the priorities of elites and their neoliberal economic project (Stewart, 2020: 1210). Indeed, civilizational populists’ construction of the ‘elite’ presents them as “culturally deracinated” and antagonistic to cultural and national specificity, in Brubaker’s framing (Brubaker, 2017: 1192). Migration thus combines populism’s tendency to differentiate itself from both global elites and their ideology of cosmopolitanism, as well as the “dangerous” foreigners who are often linked to crime and disorder (Taguieff, 1997: 20). Meloni herself has referred to migration as part of a “globalist” project to render Italy more economically and culturally vulnerable by depriving its citizenry of their natural identities (Kington, 2022). Yet civilizational populism – and its connections to race, religion, and ethnicity – also helps illuminate the logic of why some migrants may be more accepted than others. For example, while the Meloni regime has been critical of policies allowing for the intake of Middle Eastern and African migrants and refugees, it has been more welcoming towards Ukrainians fleeing the conflict.
In Tunisia, the issue of migration has been particularly salient under the Saied regime. Tunisia has long been a country of departure for migrants seeking to reach Europe, a pattern which accelerated after the economic and political instability following the Arab Spring. Yet while in the past, most migrants transiting from Tunisia to Europe have been of Tunisian origin, since 2023 Tunisia has become the largest point of departure for sub-Saharan African migrants embarking for Europe (Abderrahim, 2024). This has introduced new dynamics, including growing racist and anti-sub-Saharan African sentiments, that have been intensified by European policy favoring the externalization of migration governance.
In referencing migration, Saied has used language typical of civilizational populism: he has presented mass sub-Saharan African migration as a demographic threat to Tunisian identity. Such rhetoric was civilizational rather than solely ethnonationalist: irregular migration, in his words, would transform Tunisia from a member of the Arab-Islamic community to “just another African country” (Al Jazeera, 2023). This statement drew on a long history of contestation within negotiations over Tunisia’s regional identity, as well as long-standing marginalization of the country’s Black population (Mzioudet, 2024). After Saied voiced these sentiments in an infamous and controversial speech, Tunisian police began escalating repression of migrants and punishing organizations that advocate on their behalf.
Yet in addressing this issue, the Saied regime has had to balance competing priorities, indicating the complex and shifting power dynamics constraining populists’ agency in the foreign policy arena. The EU has been willing to offer much-needed financial support in exchange for Tunisian cooperation over migration governance. This dependency makes it difficult for Saied to adopt a classic civilizational populist positioning, in which sovereignty is performed through pure oppositionality (Dudlak, 2025: 629). In effect, however, more interceptions of migrant crossings at sea have led to increasing numbers of sub-Saharan Africans stranded in Tunisia, unable to work or obtain housing due to stricter government policies and further inflaming tensions with Tunisian citizens.
This article analyses the tensions at work in EU-Tunisian migration negotiations and their resolution through Italian mediation. Through analyzing official statements, politicians’ interviews with the press, media coverage, and debates within the European Union from the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in 2023 to the development of European-Tunisian migration partnership throughout 2024-2025, it traces the narratives advanced by proponents and antagonists of the MoU about migration within Tunisia, Italy, and the European Union. This allows for populism to be analyzed as both a strategy and ideology, builds on studies that similarly approach populism – and its links to securitized imaginaries – using a qualitative narrative analytical method centering intertextuality (Löfflmann, 2024).
This study offers theoretical insights linking populist foreign policy to ontological security. Ontological security suggests that states – as well as international bodies – strive for continuity of identity, even at the cost of instability in their foreign relations (Mitzen, 2006). Through analyzing the EU-Italy-Tunisia relationship, this article argues that Meloni’s intercession, fueled in part by shared civilizational populist values between Meloni and Saied, helped the Saied regime cooperate with Europe whilst avoiding the appearance of subservience to the European Union. In so doing, it preserved both the ontological security of the Saied regime and its prioritization of sovereignty, as well as that of the European Union, who could distance themselves from the human rights abuses attending the deal.
This article suggests that unequal power dynamics between the European Union and Tunisia – and between member states within the European Union – are essential in understanding the Saied regime’s seeming erraticism during migration negotiations. Consequently, it advances that bilateral relations between populists can be improved through symbolically differentiating themselves from multilateral institutions – which, in turn, can further empower populists on the global stage.
(*) Helen L. Murphey is a Post Doctoral Scholar at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University. She earned a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews in 2023, where she was a Carnegie PhD Scholar. She has previously held an appointment as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics at Whitman College. She is a Research Associate at the Institute of Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus Studies at the University of St Andrews and an Affiliate at the Center for the Study of Religion at the Ohio State University. Her research interests include populism, conspiracy theories, religious social movements and migration. Email: murphey.27@osu.edu | ORCID: 0000-0002-1504-3818
In this thought-provoking commentary, Dr. João Ferreira Dias argues that the dominant ideology underpinning contemporary right-wing movements is not populism or illiberalism, but nativism—a worldview centered on defending the “native” population against perceived external and internal threats. Drawing on theorists such as Cas Mudde, Ernesto Laclau, and Fareed Zakaria, Dr. Dias shows that while populism offers the form of political antagonism (“the people” versus “the elites”), nativism provides its substance: the protection of cultural and demographic identity against globalization and multiculturalism. Dr. Dias concludes that nativism’s emotional and existential appeal—rooted in fear of the “other” and longing for cultural homogeneity—has achieved social hegemony across much of the West.
We often speak of populism, the radical right, or illiberalism. Yet, to truly understand the rise and entrenchment of the contemporary right, we may need to shift our analytical lens toward nativism. What unites right-wing populist leaders with individuals such as Mr. Armando, the bakery owner; Ms. Aurora, a civil servant; Uncle Venâncio, a retiree; or José Maria, a private school student, is not a coherent philosophical conception of the state. It is something more elemental and psychological: the belief that globalization and multiculturalism—especially in the form of immigration—are dismantling national identities.
When radical right-wing populism first emerged, it proved difficult to classify. While it drew from the Nouvelle Droite (Taguieff, 1993), it also contained a performative, mobilizing dimension, and a radicalism based on the division of society into “us” and “them.”
Cas Mudde (2007), a leading scholar in the field, defined this populism as a “thin-centered ideology,” rooted in the binary logic of “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elites.” Ernesto Laclau (2005), in contrast, identified populism as a political logic—a way of constructing the political—rather than a specific ideological content.
Generally, the radical right populism of recent decades rests on a threefold structure: (i) the moral division between the “pure people” and the “corrupt elites”; (ii) the defense of national identity against multiculturalism; and (iii) the combat against the political left, viewed as conspiring against Western values and the traditional family.
From a governmentality perspective, Fareed Zakaria (1997) introduced the concept of “illiberal democracy” to describe regimes that maintain electoral institutions while eroding liberal principles: consolidating power in a charismatic executive, weakening checks and balances, politicizing the judiciary, and overriding constitutional limits in the name of majority will.
However, illiberalism, in my view, is either inextricably tied to the radical right, or it remains conceptually ambiguous. In fact, the radical left also exhibits illiberal tendencies—engaging in practices such as censorship or moral cancellation—but in favor of minorities and a coercive form of progressive social purification, rather than a majoritarian ethos. This suggests that illiberalism is not exclusive to the right, nor is it sufficient to describe its ideological nucleus.
The term nativism, although first used in 19th-century America to describe anti-immigration movements such as the Know Nothings or the Ku Klux Klan, reemerged in modern academic discourse in the 1950s, particularly through John Higham’s Strangers in the Land (1955). In that work, Higham captures the sense of alienation experienced by native populations facing rapid demographic and cultural transformation.
In the 1990s, as scholarly attention to populism intensified, Paul Taggart and Hans-Georg Betz argued that modern right-wing populism was characterized by a fusion of three elements: populism, nativism, and authoritarianism (Betz, 1994; Taggart, 2000). In the following decade, Cas Mudde (2007) identified nativism as the core ideology of these parties, and populism as their political form. Later refinements clarified this conceptual division: populism provides the structure—the antagonism between “the people” and “the elites”—while nativism offers the content, namely the opposition between natives and foreigners (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017).
This clarification substantiates the central argument of this essay: that nativism should be analyzed as an ideology. Let us consider why.
First, the populist discourse of “us” versus “them” is not exclusive to the radical right. It is equally present on the radical left, which often constructs a similar dichotomy between “the people” and “the elites,” or between the “majority” and “minorities.” The difference lies in the subject being defended and the identity politics at play, rather than in the structure of the discourse.
Second, the radical right is not uniformly illiberal. It exhibits significant internal variation. Many such parties and movements are illiberal with respect to morality—advocating traditionalist or exclusionary cultural values—while remaining economically liberal. Others, though equally illiberal in terms of cultural values (a sine qua non), adopt statist economic models, defending welfare policies but restricting their benefits to the native population. Thus, illiberalism is not a constant across the radical right, but nativism is. It constitutes the shared ideological foundation that allows for otherwise divergent policy positions.
This is why it may be more accurate and analytically fruitful to define these movements simply as nativist, and their ideology as nativism. This classification applies to both political elites and voters alike.
At its core, the ideology’s resonance lies in the perceived demographic threat, most radically articulated in Renaud Camus’ “Great Replacement” theory. This idea has circulated widely, in varying intensities and local adaptations, across Western societies. As native populations decline demographically—due to lower birth rates—and immigration brings culturally distinct newcomers, a so-called “perfect demographic storm” is formed: the “demographic winter” of the native population collides with the “demographic summer” of incoming groups.
The result is a growing sense of existential threat, particularly toward Muslim immigrants, who are seen as both culturally incompatible and demographically ascendant. This sense of threat fuels resentment toward multiculturalism and the progressive left, which is often held responsible for promoting it. What emerges is a feeling of estrangement in one’s own homeland—a central affective dimension of modern nativism.
In sum, the ideology that has achieved social hegemony in many Western societies today is best understood not as populism or illiberalism, but as nativism: a worldview centered on the defense of the native population’s perceived interests, identity, and territorial integrity. Those who support nativist movements are not primarily mobilized by economic platforms, but by a profound distrust of the “other.” This “other” is not necessarily blamed for stealing jobs, but for competing for scarce welfare resources—access to schools, healthcare, housing—or even for altering the cultural landscape of spaces that once symbolized familiarity and social cohesion.
Biology reminds us that the presence of the “other” is often the most basic trigger in the formation of the “we.” Thus, what we are witnessing is not merely populism or illiberalism, but nativism at its core—an instinctive social reaction which, when politicized, seeks to defend what is perceived as the homeland (the nation) and protect those considered its rightful heirs.
References
Betz, H.-G. (1994). Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe. Palgrave Macmillan.
Higham, J. (1955). Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925. Rutgers University Press.
Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. Verso.
Mudde, C. (2007). Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge University Press.
Mudde, C., & Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
Taggart, P. (2000). Populism. Open University Press.
Taguieff, P. A. (1993). Origines et métamorphoses de la nouvelle droite. Vingtieme siecle. Revue d’histoire, 3-22.
Zakaria, F. (1997). The Rise of Illiberal Democracy. Foreign Affairs, 76(6), 22–43.
Moldova’s 2025 parliamentary elections mark a pivotal moment in the geopolitical tug-of-war between the European Union and Russia. Despite unprecedented hybrid interference—including disinformation, illicit financing, and the use of new technologies—the pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) secured a decisive victory. Dr. Ecaterina Locoman cautions, however, that this success is “more of a temporary setback” for Moscow than a strategic defeat: “Russia will gather its resources again.” In this interview with ECPS, Dr. Locoman analyzes Moldova’s evolving democratic resilience, the adaptive strategies of Russian influence, the role of the diaspora, and the country’s ambitious EU accession goal. She underscores the importance of sustained domestic reform and Western engagement to keep Moldova on its “irreversible European path.”
Moldova’s 2025 parliamentary elections have emerged as a pivotal moment in the geopolitical contest between the European Union and Russia. Against a backdrop of unprecedented hybrid interference—including disinformation campaigns, illicit financing, and the use of new technologies—Moldova’s pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) secured a decisive victory. Yet, as Dr. Ecaterina Locoman cautions in this interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), this success must be understood as both real and fragile: “I expect that Russia will continue to influence domestic politics. It’s part of their strategic goal to regain control over the post-Soviet region, and I don’t think this should be read as a strategic loss. It’s more of a temporary setback, but they will gather their resources again.”
Dr. Locoman, Senior Lecturer at the Lauder Institute and in the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, situates Moldova’s electoral resilience within a hybrid framework of domestic determination and external support. “We can interpret the results of the Moldovan elections as a hybrid outcome. On the one hand, they reflect a strong domestic effort—both from political institutions and voters—who showed remarkable resilience in the face of Russian interference and influence. On the other hand, it is also clear that without the support of Western partners, especially the European Union, this success would not have been possible. So, it’s both a domestic and international story.”
This resilience was manifested not only through institutional preparedness—such as stronger oversight of illicit financing and disinformation—but also through robust diaspora engagement and sustained voter mobilization. “The numbers show that 280,000 Moldovans abroad voted in the elections,” Dr. Locoman notes, highlighting how mail ballots and close transnational ties helped bolster the pro-EU vote. She underscores that “the diaspora is relatively young… they maintain very strong links to Moldovan politics and what is happening at home.”
At the same time, Moscow’s influence tactics are evolving. Russia experimented with “the use of AI and alternative financial methods, like cryptocurrency,” to obscure financial flows and spread propaganda. While these efforts ultimately proved less effective this cycle, Dr. Locoman warns against complacency: “Moscow is one of the best students of the post-Soviet region… they will learn from their own mistakes and improve their strategies in the next elections. This fight needs to continue.”
Looking ahead, Moldova’s ambition to join the European Union by 2030 faces both internal and external hurdles. Domestically, slow reforms, corruption, and economic vulnerabilities remain pressing concerns. Externally, geopolitical vetoes—most notably from Hungary—could obstruct accession negotiations. “I have some doubts—not fear, but doubts—about how quickly the situation can move by 2030,” Dr. Locoman admits. Yet she also maintains a note of cautious optimism: “Up until 2022, Moldova had been knocking on the EU’s doors for more than 30 years… and then, in the end, it happened.”
In this interview, Dr. Locoman offers a nuanced analysis of Moldova’s evolving democratic landscape, the adaptive strategies of Russian influence, and the strategic choices facing both Moldovan and European leaders in the years to come.
Here is the transcript of our interview with Dr. Ecaterina Locoman, lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Resilience at Home, Support Abroad
National meeting of the Moldovan people with the flags of the European Union and the Republic of Moldova. Chisinau, Moldova, May 21, 2023. Photo: Andrei F.
Dr. Ecaterina Locoman, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Moldova’s parliamentary elections delivered a decisive victory for the ruling pro-European Union PAS despite unprecedented Russian interference. Should we interpret this outcome as a durable consolidation of democratic resilience, or as a contingent success heavily dependent on extraordinary EU and Western support?
Dr. Ecaterina Locoman: Thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. I think we can interpret the results of the Moldovan elections as a hybrid outcome. On the one hand, they reflect a strong domestic effort—both from political institutions and voters—who showed remarkable resilience in the face of Russian interference and influence. On the other hand, it is also clear that without the support of Western partners, especially the European Union, this success would not have been possible. So, it’s both a domestic and international story.
Importantly, if we look back at the 2024 presidential elections and now the 2025 parliamentary elections, voters have chosen a similar direction. This indicates that democracy in Moldova, while perhaps not as strong or stable as one might wish, is nonetheless evolving. Moldovans and their institutions are working every day to strengthen it. We saw a high degree of voter mobilization despite significant Russian efforts, including disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, and illicit financing. Voter turnout was relatively high at 52%, demonstrating strong civic engagement.
Compared to the 2024 presidential elections, domestic institutions such as the prosecutor’s office and the police clearly learned from past mistakes. They were better prepared to identify and address unlawful use of illicit funding and electoral violations. This helped build voter confidence in the electoral process. As in previous elections, diaspora engagement was also very strong, further contributing to democratic resilience. Overall, these factors point to an increased resilience among Moldovans in defending their democratic process.
Pro-Russian Messages Losing Ground
To what extent do the results reflect a deepening societal commitment to a pro-European orientation, as opposed to a rejection of entrenched pro-Russian elites such as Igor Dodon and his allies, whose populist appeals often fuse anti-elite rhetoric with civilizational tropes about Russia as Moldova’s “natural” ally?
Dr. Ecaterina Locoman: That’s a very good question. The results show that, again, the recent election, as well as those in 2024 and 2021, reflect a continuing trend that society as a whole is more or less committed to a pro-Western orientation. I travel to Moldova on a yearly basis, and I can see that the country has changed significantly in recent years since Maia Sandu became president. There is a very clear pro-European trend. That said, it’s true that we don’t have precise data on how many Moldovans live abroad. Every summer, many of them return, and perhaps my impression of the country is somewhat skewed because I visit during that period when a lot of diaspora members are back home. Still, the spirit in the country is very much pro-European.
It’s also true that there have been numerous reports on this topic. I have studied how both Russia and the West try to influence domestic politics in post-Soviet states, and my research shows that Russia has long been grooming local political actors in countries such as Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia. The fact that they were able to attract and cultivate specific types of political figures—such as Igor Dodon, for example, a former president of Moldova who now enjoys little popularity among large segments of the electorate—indicates that Moldovans are increasingly able to distinguish between leaders who genuinely seek to build a democratic, secure, and prosperous future for the country and those who do not.
Pro-Russian actors have not been particularly original or creative in how they promote their message. This message is losing ground, especially because of the war in Ukraine. It is no longer easy to “sell” this narrative. Previously, Moldovan politics often involved strategic shifts between Russia and the West, depending on which side best served domestic interests. Today, this approach is much harder to sustain. The war raging in neighboring Ukraine has made people more aware of the stakes, and Moldova has received a significant number of Ukrainian refugees. As a result, it has become much more difficult for pro-Russian parties to sell their message as effectively as before.
A Blessing in Disguise: Russia’s Unintended Push
Russian military expert at a government operations base, engaged in cyber activities aimed at spreading disinformation and hybrid warfare propaganda. Photo: Dragos Condrea.
With turnout just above 50%, what does this relative disengagement reveal about the durability of PAS’s mandate, and does persistent electoral apathy risk undermining the legitimacy of Moldova’s democratic consolidation over time?
Dr. Ecaterina Locoman: As I mentioned earlier, yes, the turnout was just over 50%, but this number is not unusually low for Moldova. In fact, compared to some recent elections in the region, 52% is relatively solid. However, you are right that it also signals that a significant portion of the electorate remains disengaged, which has implications for the durability of the ruling party’s mandate to govern over the next four years.
The fact that Maia Sandu’s party won elections for the second time is significant. They secured a clear majority of seats and resisted heavy Russian interference and influence. At the same time, much of their enthusiasm is concentrated during election periods, when the central question is whether the country is moving east or west. This enthusiasm does not always last throughout the full four-year governing period.
Moldovans are frustrated with the slow pace of reforms, the persistence of corruption, and the fact that judicial change has not progressed as quickly as many had hoped. Many voters remain disillusioned with these slow reforms, persistent poverty, and daily economic hardships. For this reason, it is especially important for the governing party to deliver results quickly—both to maintain its stated goal of joining the European Union and to ensure that its policies meet the expectations of the electorate.
In some ways, the Russian presence is acting as a “blessing in disguise.” Without the Russian threat at the border, Moldovan political parties might have been more complacent and less willing to pursue reforms. Because the threat is so close, it creates a greater sense of urgency among both political actors and the population to mobilize and align with the European Union.
What has changed significantly compared to previous elections—particularly over the past decade, since around 2010—is the unprecedented level of symbolic, technical, and financial support the European Union has provided to Maia Sandu and Moldovan political institutions. EU leaders have repeatedly visited Moldova and demonstrated their support, which is unprecedented in the country’s history.
In my own research, I found that since 1991, when Moldova declared independence from the USSR, one of its main foreign policy challenges has been ensuring that the West paid any attention to it at all. For many years, Moldova was on the radar only because of the Transnistrian conflict. As long as things were quiet and stable, there was little engagement. Now, however, Moldovan political elites—especially Maia Sandu—have succeeded in breaking through this indifference and convincing European leaders that Moldova is strategically important to the EU and its security.
Transnationalizing Moldovan Democracy
The diaspora played a decisive role in shaping the outcome. How should we understand this transnationalization of Moldovan democracy, especially given populist narratives at home that cast the diaspora as an illegitimate, “externalized” electorate undermining national sovereignty?
Dr. Ecaterina Locoman: That’s true. I like the expression you used—the transnationalization of Moldovan democracy. The numbers show that 280,000 Moldovans abroad voted in the elections. This is because the governing party recognized that much of their support comes from the diaspora, so they facilitated the voting process abroad. The introduction of mail ballots was a smart and strategic move, because people living in countries like the United States find it much easier to vote by mail than to go in person to Moldovan embassies or consulates. This was an important step, reflecting the fact that domestic political elites understood the crucial role the diaspora plays.
Another important factor is that the diaspora is relatively young. Most of those who have moved abroad are in their 50s, 40s, 30s, and 20s. They maintain very strong links to Moldovan politics and what is happening at home. Many have families in Moldova, so they remain deeply engaged, and I was pleased to see the high level of civic engagement among the diaspora, particularly their efforts to support and promote European integration.
It’s true that the more pro-Russia parties tend to portray the diaspora negatively. I think it was Igor Dodon who, at one point during a previous presidential election, referred to the diaspora as a “parallel electorate,” claiming that they don’t know what’s happening at home, that they live in the West and therefore want the country to join the West. He argued that they are disconnected from domestic realities, which is not true. The links between the diaspora and Moldova remain very strong.
If you visit in the summertime, you can see many young people and young families returning. In the 1990s and early 2000s, before Moldova had a visa-free regime with the EU, many Moldovans tried to work in the EU illegally. They often ended up stuck abroad, unable to return home, and the maximum support they could provide was through remittances.
Government building decorated with Moldovan and European Union flags, as well as national and EU symbols, in central Chisinau, Chisinau, Moldova on June 1, 2025. Photo: Gheorghe Mindru.
Now, because the EU has introduced a visa-free regime and many Moldovans have been able to obtain Romanian citizenship—thanks to Romania’s revised citizenship law allowing those who can prove family links from the interwar period when Moldova was part of Greater Romania to apply—many people have Romanian passports. This allows them to live and work legally in the EU.
As a result, many young families now live in European countries such as Germany, Belgium, and Great Britain during the year, but they build homes in Moldova, have parents and siblings there, and remain in close contact. So, it is not accurate to argue that the diaspora is disconnected from events at home. In fact, it is very much a part of what is happening domestically. As long as domestic political actors continue to engage the diaspora and maintain these connections, the pro-European movement will hopefully remain strong.
Hybrid Interference: New Tactics, Old Goals
Observers describe Moldova as a “laboratory” for Russia’s hybrid interference. From disinformation to illicit financing, what does the 2025 electoral cycle reveal about the adaptive limits of Moscow’s toolkit of influence?
Dr. Ecaterina Locoman: Yes, we’ve seen new models of influence that Russia has used in the elections. The use of AI and alternative financial methods, like cryptocurrency, for example, is new. They tried to hide financial links by using cryptocurrency, which, in a way, influenced the process. But, this also revealed the limits of Russian influence. I would add a caveat here: Moscow—indeed the Kremlin—is one of the best students of the post-Soviet region. They know the region very well and have people who have studied it in depth. So, I expect that they will learn from their own mistakes and improve their strategies in the next elections. This means that Moldova’s pro-European victory should not be seen as a sign that we can become complacent or self-sufficient. This fight needs to continue. As I said, Moscow is a very good student of the post-Soviet region. They understand the internal realities of these countries. They know the challenges that people face, the domestic weak points, and they try to exploit these to the advantage of their messages and narratives.
At the same time, many of these tools proved ineffective at this point in time because Moldovan institutions—and civil society as well—were more proactive than in past elections. Moldovan institutions learned important lessons from the last presidential elections. Parties engaged in illicit financing were excluded from the ballot, prosecutions were pursued, and the government was much more transparent in communicating about disinformation campaigns. As a result, people were much more aware of what was going on.
While the Russian toolkit has evolved technologically, its effectiveness is limited when met with resilient institutions, rapid countermeasures, and credible alternatives. If we look at one successful formula that worked in Moldova at this moment, I would still be cautious not to declare this the end of Russian interference. Russian influence will remain strong in the region. But what worked was a credible pro-EU message from domestic political parties, coupled with strong and credible support from the EU, which was very important. Additionally, the pro-Russia parties were not as original in their messaging, and the ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine further strengthened the pro-EU camp.
Exploiting Weak Links: Moscow’s Populist Playbook
The T-34 tank monument and the Parliament building in Tiraspol, Transnistria, Moldova. The tank is a decommissioned T-34, now part of the Memorial of Glory. Photo: Dreamstime.
In the light of your research on Russian influence strategies, how do you interpret Moscow’s reliance on populist-style appeals—framing EU integration as a betrayal of sovereignty, invoking fears of war, or portraying elites as “foreign agents”? Does the Moldovan case suggest a recalibration of these tactics compared to Ukraine or Georgia?
Dr. Ecaterina Locoman: What is happening in Moldova, again, links to what I was just saying in response to the previous question. When I think about Georgia, the support for a pro-EU orientation was very strong. Public opinion support was extremely high, but it was not enough. When Russia was able to find a credible, strong domestic political actor, it was able to promote its own interests inside Georgia. What is different in Moldova’s case right now is that there was both a credible pro-EU party and strong public opinion support for the European Union. Now, Russia does not necessarily rely only on populist-style appeals. They know the weaknesses in each of these countries—the weak links—and they try to use those for their own interests. One thing I have noticed is that as long as domestic political elites are smart and strategic in how they frame their political messaging, it matters a lot.
I will give an example. Since Moldova declared independence in 1991, one very big question has been whether the language spoken in Moldova is Romanian or Moldovan. Political campaigns and electoral strategies were often built around this division. More pro-EU, pro-Romanian parties argued that the language is Romanian, while more pro-Russia parties insisted it is Moldovan. In every electoral campaign, these pro-Russia political parties used such narratives to distract voters from real issues like economic problems and corruption.
What happened in the years since Maia Sandu came to power is that the Moldovan constitution was amended to enshrine that the language spoken in Moldova is Romanian. So now, there is no debate about it. Nobody is questioning it anymore. The point I want to make is that as long as domestic political elites manage to settle these kinds of debates—which are not central to everyday life—then it becomes much harder for pro-Russia political actors to exploit them. People’s income levels or quality of life do not depend on whether they call the language Romanian or Moldovan.
When the Russians spot these kinds of differences, they manipulate public opinion and can win. But if domestic political elites can agree and establish clear positions on such issues, it becomes much harder for pro-Russia actors to influence the public. For example, pro-Russia parties have strong backing in the Orthodox Church in Moldova, which is very influential. There were reports that some priests were used by the Kremlin to influence public opinion. But as long as there is clear messaging from mainstream political parties in Moldova that they are not anti-religion, that religion is respected and people are free to practice their faith, then it becomes harder for pro-Russian narratives—often based on fake realities—to take hold.
When people hear credible messages from their own political elites, it becomes much easier for them to discern truth from lies. Similarly, the narrative about war has become much harder for Russia to sell right now. Why? Because they are waging a war in neighboring Ukraine. It is much harder to claim that moving toward the EU will bring war when there is already a war caused by Russia next door. This narrative was more effective in earlier elections, but now, as long as the West continues to support Ukraine and Ukraine withstands the Russian attack, it will be much easier for Moldova to remain strong and maintain its pro-European orientation and stance.
Without Reforms, Western Support Won’t Be Enough
How sustainable is Moldova’s reliance on Western partners for countering hybrid threats, given persistent vulnerabilities such as corruption, weak institutions, and economic hardship?
Dr. Ecaterina Locoman: This is a very good question. I think about it very often. As much as Russian influence may be a blessing in disguise—in the sense that it mobilizes people at home to work hard and pushes political parties to deliver on their promises and act quickly—the support from the European Union, and even from the United States, is the best thing that can happen to Moldova. As long as the EU remains invested in Moldova, we will be able to maintain our pro-European path more easily.
One fear I have is that we might become complacent, assuming that the EU or the West will always come to our rescue and that we can simply continue doing whatever we are doing internally. When I go to Moldova, I often hear people—business people, entrepreneurs—complaining that not much has changed compared to 10 or 15 years ago. Corruption is still rampant. In order to obtain permits to build something, for example, you still need to pay someone in the government. This is unfortunate, and people are aware of it.
My conclusion is that domestic political parties must understand that this is a “make it or break it” moment. If they do not deliver on the promises they have made, it will become much easier for political actors in Moldova who promote Russian interests to regain power. And once that happens, it will be much, much harder to get Moldova out of Russia’s embrace. So, I think it depends very much on the willingness of the ruling party right now, and Maia Sandu, to deliver on the reforms they have promised.
A Temporary Setback, Not a Strategic Defeat
Do Moldova’s elections signal a broader decline in Russia’s ability to project influence across the post-Soviet space, or should Moscow’s defeat here be read as tactical rather than strategic?
Dr. Ecaterina Locoman: As I shared earlier, I do not think this is a Russian defeat in the long term. Russia is very adept at adjusting its messaging and tactics, not only with respect to the post-Soviet region but also to the wider EU region. They will learn from their mistakes and continue to influence domestic politics in Moldova, as much as we might not like it. Even if the political actors they supported did not win as many seats in Parliament as they initially hoped, we can look at the first four years of Maia Sandu’s party in government.
Basically, these previous four years were devoted to crisis management. Yes, it’s true, initially it was the COVID pandemic, but then the war in Ukraine, caused by Russia, turned everything upside down in Moldova. So instead of focusing on judicial reforms and economic development, as the party had initially promised and as Maia Sandu stated, they had to adjust. I think they managed—they were successful in delivering some of the promises made during the electoral campaign—but it was ten times harder.
I expect that Russia will continue to influence domestic politics. It’s part of their strategic goal to regain control over the post-Soviet region, and I don’t think this should be read as a strategic loss. It’s more of a temporary setback, but they will gather their resources again. Therefore, both Moldovan and European Union leaders need to stay on their toes, remain alert, and be careful about the next steps so they are prepared to counteract those measures.
EU Accession: Between Optimism and Doubt
Nicolae Ciucă (L), President of the National Liberal Party, Ursula von der Leyen (C), President of the European Commission, and Maia Sandu (R), President of Moldova, during the plenary session of the 2024 EPP Congress in Bucharest on March 6, 2024. Photo: Dreamstime.
And lastly, Dr. Locoman, President Sandu has tied her mandate to enshrining an “irreversible European path.” How realistic is Moldova’s aim to achieve EU accession by 2030, given the scale of domestic reforms required and potential geopolitical vetoes within the Union?
Dr. Ecaterina Locoman: Recently, Maia Sandu visited Copenhagen. Denmark hosted a major summit with key EU leaders. Ukraine was there, Maia Sandu was there, and there were reports that they were hoping Hungary would be persuaded not to veto the right of Ukraine and Moldova to start accession negotiations. However, Hungary was not persuaded. So the only hope they have right now is that there will be a political change in Budapest, allowing this to move forward.
A lot of the frustration I hear among policymakers in Moldova, when it comes to the EU, is that they are disappointed the European Union decided to put Moldova and Ukraine in the same bucket for European integration. There were hopes that Moldova would be decoupled, that it would go its own way, and Ukraine would go its own way. But the Europeans still seem to favor moving forward together as a group.
A fear I have is that Moldova is much smaller than Ukraine. Yes, domestic reforms need to be done, but as long as there is political will, it is possible to achieve them. I share a bit of the concern raised in the question. I am afraid that if the situation continues as it is now, Moldova might face the same fate as the Western Balkans over the past 20 years. The door was opened for them too, but then they stalled, and no real progress has been made, apart from Croatia joining the EU.
So, I have some doubts—not fear, but doubts—about how quickly the situation can move by 2030. Is this truly realistic? But then again, up until 2022, Moldova had been knocking on the EU’s doors for more than 30 years, asking for candidate status, and the EU kept saying no. And then, in the end, it happened. Yes, it was because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it was unfortunate that this was the trigger, but it happened. So I try to stay optimistic and hope that by 2030, Moldova will be able to join the EU.
In an interview with ECPS, Dr. Cristian Cantir (Oakland University) described Moldova’s 2025 parliamentary elections as “a major win for the European Union and a major defeat for the Kremlin.” Despite massive Russian interference—including vote-buying, cryptocurrency transfers, and efforts to incite unrest—Moldovan institutions responded with unprecedented consistency, demonstrating what Dr. Cantir calls a “confirmation of Moldova’s democratic resilience.” Yet, he warns that Moscow remains influential through populist narratives exploiting poverty and weak institutions. The results, he argues, reflect both the enduring popularity of EU integration and the failures of pro-Russian opposition parties. For Dr. Cantir, Moldova offers a striking example of how Russian influence faces diminishing returns when met with institutional strength and sustained Western support.
The outcome of Moldova’s 2025 parliamentary elections has been widely interpreted as a defining moment in the country’s European trajectory and its long struggle to resist Russian influence. In an interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Cristian Cantir, Associate Professor of Political Science at Oakland University, framed the results in stark geopolitical terms: “At a macro level, I would say this election represents a major win for the European Union and a major defeat for the Kremlin. I think it’s fair to frame it in those terms as a general way of understanding what happened.”
Dr. Cantir’s assessment reflects not only the electoral success of the pro-European Action and Solidarity Party (PAS), but also the broader resilience of Moldova’s democratic institutions in the face of Moscow’s sustained interference campaigns. International observers judged the elections to be generally free and fair, even amid bomb threats, electoral violations, and widespread attempts at corruption. As Dr. Cantir explains, this points to a “confirmation of Moldova’s democratic resilience,” if not yet full consolidation, as state institutions and law enforcement demonstrated an increased capacity to respond to hybrid threats.
Russia’s interference toolkit—long tested in Moldova—appeared less effective in this cycle. The Kremlin poured more resources into the effort, funding political actors, experimenting with cryptocurrency transfers, and attempting to stoke unrest. Yet, Dr. Cantir argues, these strategies delivered “diminishing returns” in a political environment where institutions had grown more proactive. “Moscow has been somewhat taken aback by the extent to which Moldovan institutions have now responded in such a consistent way to Russian interference,” he observes. The shift suggests that the Kremlin’s approach is increasingly constrained by its own reliance on disinformation and narratives fed by loyal pro-Russian politicians, which often fail to reflect the realities of Moldovan society. As Dr. Cantir notes, “some of the claims you see in Russian propaganda are so laughable and rudimentary… you wonder whether they actually believe them, because they don’t even work as propaganda.”
Still, Russia remains a formidable actor in Moldova’s domestic politics. Populist narratives that exploit socioeconomic hardship, corruption, and weak institutions continue to resonate with segments of the population, leaving Moldova’s pro-European course vulnerable to authoritarian retrenchment. Dr. Cantir highlights the need for PAS and other pro-EU forces to demonstrate tangible benefits of integration to disengaged citizens, warning that otherwise they may fall “much more easily to populist messaging” that is Eurosceptic and pro-Russian in nature.
Ultimately, the Moldovan case illustrates both the persistence and limitations of Russia’s hybrid influence operations in the post-Soviet space. Unlike Ukraine or Georgia, where Moscow has resorted to military force, Moldova demonstrates how resilience is possible when domestic institutions respond effectively and Western partners provide consistent support. As Dr. Cantir emphasizes, this election represents more than just a partisan victory—it is a symbolic moment of geopolitical realignment: a triumph for Europe, and a setback for the Kremlin.
Here is the transcript of our interview with AssociateProfessor Cristian Cantir, lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Moldova’s Elections Confirm Democratic Resilience
A man casts his ballot during parliamentary elections in Moldova, in front of the national flag. Photo: Dreamstime.
Professor Cristian Cantir, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: How would you characterize the broader significance of Moldova’s 2025 parliamentary elections, particularly in the light of the pro-European Action and Solidarity Party’s (PAS) ability to withstand unprecedented Russian interference campaigns? To what extent can this outcome be read as a genuine consolidation of Moldova’s democratic resilience, and to what degree is it contingent upon extraordinary external support from the EU and its allies?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: Thank you very much for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here, and I’m always glad to talk about Moldova—a topic that doesn’t usually get much attention in international affairs. At a macro level, I would say this election represents a major win for the European Union and a major defeat for the Kremlin. I think it’s fair to frame it in those terms as a general way of understanding what happened.
To the extent that it was generally a free and fair election, according to most international observers—even in the face of massive Russian interference—it was consistent with Moldova’s tradition of holding competitive elections since independence. I would take this as a positive sign of the relative health of Moldovan democracy. The process was conducted competently, with electoral authorities and law enforcement responding promptly to challenges, including bomb threats, reported violations, and instances of electoral corruption. From that standpoint, it serves as a solid example—not necessarily a consolidation, but certainly a confirmation—of Moldova’s democratic resilience. Of course, there remain significant challenges to Moldova’s democratic consolidation, but overall the outcome is good news for the country’s democracy.
I do think the election results can be partly attributed to external EU support, but it’s important to refine this point by highlighting one individual in particular—Moldovan President Maia Sandu. Sandu is a unique figure, not only in Moldova’s political history but also in the broader Central and Eastern European context. She has consistently been a popular, anti-corruption, reformist, pro-European leader. Many of the criticisms and attacks directed at her by the pro-Russian opposition have not gained much traction. She has remained highly popular within Moldova, due in part to her strong international reputation, especially among EU politicians. In this sense, when we talk about external influence, it is really a combination of two factors: Sandu’s personal popularity and the EU’s admiration for, and support of, her during this campaign. That said, I would not be so confident in giving the ruling party, PAS, too much credit for the victory. There remain fundamental issues with PAS as a pro-EU force, which we can also discuss further.
Moldovans Voted for Europe, Not PAS
Do the results primarily reflect a deepening consolidation of Moldova’s pro-European trajectory, or are they better understood as a rejection of entrenched pro-Russian elites such as Igor Dodon and his allies? In other words, should we interpret the outcome as an ideological commitment to Europe or as an electoral repudiation of discredited political actors?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: We could start by noting that EU integration is genuinely popular with a majority of the Moldovan population. Most polls confirm this, and even the 2024 referendum—though decided by a razor-thin margin—pointed to its broad appeal. That narrow margin can be attributed, at least in part, to vote-buying allegations and to the pro-Russian opposition framing the referendum as a judgment on PAS, the ruling party, rather than on the EU itself. Since PAS has become almost synonymous with the pro-EU position, this image has limited the viability of any other pro-European force. As a result, most pro-EU Moldovans voted for PAS, even if they were frustrated with the party’s slow response to major challenges such as poverty or judicial reform. To some extent, then, the outcome reflects support for EU integration combined with the absence of credible alternatives. Much of the vote was strategic: it did not necessarily indicate satisfaction with PAS as a party or with its performance, but rather the lack of any real choice.
The other parties in the election can also be faulted for failing to develop a narrative that offered a genuine alternative to PAS. Many claimed to support some degree of EU integration—even pro-Russian parties promised to negotiate more with Brussels. They tried to emphasize sovereignty and introduced socially conservative themes aimed at countering what they viewed as the EU’s liberal values. Yet this did not resonate with most Moldovans, as it came across as vague messaging—essentially, “we will slow down EU integration,” without explaining what that would mean or why it was necessary. By contrast, tangible benefits such as visa-free travel or lower roaming fees—everyday concerns tied directly to EU integration—proved far more compelling. As a result, the opposition’s alternative was unclear and largely reduced to a promise of “we are not the current political elites.”
The results, therefore, can be attributed both to the continuing popularity of the EU and to the weakness of the opposition leaders. Their campaigns were driven more by resentment of the ruling party and calls to “purge the system,” or what they called “the regime,” than by any proactive or positive electoral platform.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu speaks at a press conference following her meeting with Bulgarian President Rumen Radev in Chișinău, Moldova, on October 27, 2022. Photo: Dreamstime.
Diaspora Has Become the Backbone of Moldova’s Pro-EU Course
The Moldovan diaspora appears to have played a decisive role in shaping the electoral outcome. How should we understand the implications of this phenomenon for the transnationalization of Moldovan democracy, particularly regarding questions of sovereignty, external leverage, and the construction of a political community that extends well beyond national borders?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: The question of the Moldovan diaspora is particularly interesting, as it has been essential in consolidating Moldova’s pro-EU course, especially in recent years. Voting has also become much easier for diaspora members, particularly in Western countries, which is where most diaspora ballots are cast. As a result, the Moldovan diaspora is strongly pro-Western in its orientation—overwhelmingly so, judging by the last few elections.
With some exceptions, the Moldovan diaspora is relatively recent, with the first wave beginning in the 1990s. Attachments to the homeland remain very strong, and personal connections are still close. Travel has also become much easier—for example, low-cost airlines have made going back and forth far more accessible. And because most Moldovans abroad now reside legally, there is far less fear than in the 1990s and 2000s, when many migrated illegally or crossed borders without visas and were hesitant to return. For all these reasons, the diaspora’s ties to Moldova remain particularly strong.
The diaspora has not yet developed a separate identity; it remains very much rooted in Moldova. For example, if you visit Moldova in August, it is striking—you hear Moldovan children speaking with Portuguese accents in shops, and it becomes difficult to get a dentist appointment because so many diaspora members return home for treatment. This illustrates how deeply the diaspora remains part of Moldovan society. The ruling PAS, like other parties, has been very friendly and encouraging toward the diaspora. There are events organized exclusively for them, success stories highlighted in the media, and programs inviting them to return and share their experiences. There is also considerable gratitude for remittances, which have helped offset some of the country’s socioeconomic inequalities.
It is also important to remember that Moldovans’ understanding of sovereignty has always carried a transnational dimension. Many have looked to Romania for cultural and ethnic identity markers, while others have looked to Russia. As a result, Moldovans are more accustomed to hybrid and multiple identities. They can remain deeply connected both to the countries where they now live and to Moldovan politics—connections that are further strengthened by technology such as Facebook, online news, and live-streamed broadcasts.
The picture becomes more complicated when we look at the politicization of the diaspora, particularly by pro-Russian forces. Because the diaspora is strongly supportive of pro-Western groups, pro-Russian politicians have advanced a narrative—especially visible in recent years—that Moldovans inside the country oppose PAS, while those abroad support it. The argument is that Moldova’s diaspora is effectively holding those who remain at home hostage to the PAS regime. Pro-Russian groups have been trying to inflame tensions between these two communities. Igor Dodon, Moldova’s most prominent pro-Russian politician, has even described the diaspora as a “parallel electorate.” Another pro-Russian politician, Irina Vlah, has pursued what can only be described as an unusual campaign, promoting narratives such as asking Moldovans to “adopt” a fellow citizen inside the country who is suffering under the pro-EU PAS. I would not be surprised if such narratives continue to spread and further deepen tensions between diaspora communities and Moldovans still at home.
Finally, one more point: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its interference in Moldovan politics has highlighted an unresolved issue concerning the Moldovan diaspora in Russia. Estimates of the diaspora there range from about 100,000 to several hundred thousand people. Because of Russian interference, Moldovan authorities have opened only a minimal number of polling stations, most of them in Moscow. Given the vast size of Russia, this makes it much more difficult for Moldovans living there to cast their ballots. Authorities argue that this limitation is necessary to ensure ballot security, but it leaves unresolved the broader problem of how to guarantee equal voting rights for all members of the diaspora, regardless of where they reside. This remains a pressing question that Moldovan politicians will eventually have to address, even though, for now, it has been overshadowed by Russia’s interference.
Former Moldovan President Igor Dodon attends a Party of Socialists meeting in Bălți, Moldova, on October 17, 2021. Photo: Iuri Gagarin.
Low Turnout Makes Moldova Vulnerable to Populist Messaging
With voter turnout just above 50%, what does the relative disengagement of a significant portion of the electorate reveal about the legitimacy and durability of PAS’s mandate? To what extent does persistent electoral apathy constrain the prospects for long-term democratic consolidation and weaken the societal foundations of Moldova’s pro-European orientation?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: I want to make a quick statistical note first. The 2024 Moldovan Census identified about 2.3 to 2.4 million Moldovans in the country with stable residency. Meanwhile, the electoral rolls from the Central Electoral Commission list close to 300,000 Moldovans abroad, which doesn’t quite capture reality. In fact, there are many more Moldovans who still hold residency but live or work abroad. This makes turnout somewhat harder to assess in Moldova, given the fragmented data we have.
That said, the general premise of the question still holds, because the turnout percentage does indicate a degree of disengagement. This poses a problem for PAS and for Moldova’s pro-European orientation. People who are disengaged—who don’t feel invested in Moldova’s pro-EU path or don’t perceive clear benefits from EU integration—are much more susceptible to populist messaging. In Moldova, such messaging tends to be Eurosceptic and pro-Russian. As a result, these citizens may be more easily mobilized by populist politicians, giving those actors greater institutional power to undermine EU integration.
For this reason, demonstrating the tangible benefits of EU integration to more apathetic groups should be a key part of PAS’s strategy. Otherwise, we may see rising support for populist politicians. A few have already begun to gain visibility—there are two in particular I could highlight—but the broader risk of growing populist appeal is certainly there.
Russia May Be Falling Victim to Its Own Propaganda in Moldova
Observers have described Moldova as a “laboratory” for Russia’s hybrid interference strategies. In your assessment, what does the 2025 electoral cycle reveal about both the adaptive capacities and structural limitations of Moscow’s toolkit of influence? Can we speak of a paradigmatic shift in the Kremlin’s approach, or are we witnessing the persistence of familiar strategies with diminishing returns?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: That’s a really good question. The simplest answer is that we don’t know yet, and there’s a reason for that. The 2025 election was marked by greater intensity and a wider range of Kremlin interference efforts. They invested more money, backed more political actors, and became more involved in attempts to stoke violence and protests. Yet none of these efforts proved particularly effective.
There are a couple of points to keep in mind here. First of all, Moldovan law enforcement and the broader institutional response have become more active, dealing more effectively—even compared to 2024—with clear cases of electoral interference. This included vote buying, the use of cryptocurrency to transfer funds, and the use of cash for illegal financing. Another important factor in understanding the Kremlin’s difficulties in Moldova is that, for a long time, Russia had grown accustomed to acting with relative impunity there. Even when pro-European or centrist coalitions were in power, Moldovan institutions and politicians were rarely proactive in curbing Russian influence. At best, they ignored Moscow’s efforts; at worst, pro-Russian politicians openly reinforced them. I think Moscow has been somewhat taken aback by the consistency with which Moldovan institutions have now responded to Russian interference.
So, I don’t know if we are going to see a full shift in the Kremlin’s approach, but I do think there is more re-evaluation and discussion about how it might adjust its strategies. One additional point is that the Kremlin actually knows a great deal about Moldova—more so than many in the West. The problem, however, is that it continues to rely heavily on information fed by pro-Russian politicians, who often promote narratives that are simply inaccurate. For example, the claim by some pro-Russian groups that EU integration is not popular in Moldova is simply not true. It’s difficult to tell whether the Kremlin and its allies are falling victim to their own narratives, which distort their understanding of Moldovan dynamics and render their strategies less effective. That’s something I’ve often thought about, because some of the claims you see in Russian propaganda are so laughable and rudimentary. You start to wonder whether they actually believe them, since they don’t even work effectively as propaganda. That’s how rudimentary they are.
Pro-Russian supporters attend Victory Day celebrations on May 9 in Chișinău, Moldova. Alongside World War II veterans displaying their medals, members of the public dressed in Soviet-era military uniforms highlighted the enduring strength of Russian influence. Photo: Dreamstime.
Moldova Now Frames Itself as Belonging in Europe
In the light of your previous work on Moldova’s foreign policy balancing, how would you assess Chisinau’s current capacity to resist Moscow’s strategies of destabilization, particularly given Russia’s reliance on authoritarian-style tactics such as elite capture, patronage networks, and the exploitation of populist narratives?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: When it comes to balancing, we’ve seen a noticeable shift. The perception of the EU as a counterbalance to Russia—once more prominent among pro-Russian or centrist groups—was grounded in the idea that Moldova should extract benefits from all its major geopolitical partners. That view has given way to a more cultural and identity-based argument. The ruling pro-European group now frames Moldova as inherently European, emphasizing that the country “belongs in Europe” and should “go home” to Europe.
As a result, the EU is now articulated less as a strategic tool for Moldova’s foreign policy goals and more as a natural place of belonging for Moldovans. Pro-Russian parties still advance the balancing argument, but it has been severely undermined by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They have not substantially re-evaluated or adjusted their rhetoric since then, but the post-2022 context is fundamentally different. Thus, the balancing argument no longer carries the same weight. While it still registers some support in polling data, it is far less compelling from a political standpoint.
With respect to elite capture, the Kremlin is beginning to understand that Moldovan institutions are responding more coherently to Russian threats. Some of its old patronage networks or elite-capture strategies are not working as effectively because Moldovan law enforcement is pushing back. One example of this would be Russia’s attempts to infiltrate Moldovan politics or encourage spying, which the Moldovan Secret Service has been more proactive in addressing. I’m not sure how the Kremlin will deal with this particular problem.
That said, the Kremlin still retains significant power when it comes to the populist narratives, and the vulnerabilities they exploit. Given Moldova’s socioeconomic issues, including high rates of poverty, these vulnerabilities can be easily leveraged by populist politicians, and consequently by pro-Kremlin groups as well.
Odessa Looms Large in Moldova’s Strategic Calculus
What does the Moldovan case tell us about Russia’s evolving approach to influence operations in the post-Soviet space, especially compared to its tactics in Ukraine or Georgia?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: One of the key differences between Ukraine and Georgia is that, where Russia lacks either the ability or the immediate interest to engage in military action—as opposed to what it is doing in Ukraine or what it did in Georgia—its influence operations become less effective when faced with strong institutional responses and consistent support from Moldova’s allies. Because direct military threats are not immediate, Moldova has more space to resist Russian influence.
This dynamic is often reflected in discussions by Moldovan politicians about Odessa. Odessa looms large in Moldovan politics, because if the city were to fall, the strategic calculus would change significantly. If Odessa does not fall, and if Ukraine continues to resist the Russian army in southern Ukraine and around Odessa specifically, it will be considerably easier for Moldova to counter influence operations without the constant pressure of an imminent military threat.
Hybrid Warfare Is a Transnational Problem—It Requires a Transnational Response
Russian military expert at a government operations base, engaged in cyber activities aimed at spreading disinformation and hybrid warfare propaganda. Photo: Dragos Condrea.
How sustainable is Moldova’s reliance on Western partners for countering hybrid threats, given the country’s domestic vulnerabilities such as corruption, weak institutions, and economic hardship?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: That’s a good point. Ideally, you would want a sovereign state with strong institutions, fewer socioeconomic problems, and a consistent fight against corruption. That would give it the capacity to resist Russian influence more effectively without significant outside support. The European Union also needs to focus on those factors—tackling corruption, strengthening institutions, and addressing economic hardship.
At the same time, Moldova’s reliance on Western partners to counter Russian hybrid warfare is unavoidable, because this is not only Moldova’s problem. To the extent that it is a transnational challenge, it requires a transnational and coordinated response. Moldova cannot and should not handle this alone. Long-term, institutionalized cooperation with the EU is essential—both because Russian hybrid attacks extend beyond Moldova and because Moldova’s own capacities remain limited. Even if Moldova had strong governance and robust institutions, it would still need to work closely with the European Union to meet this particular threat.
Polarization in Moldova Is Fluid, Not Fixed
How realistic is Moldova’s aim to achieve EU accession by 2030, given both the demanding structural reforms and potential geopolitical vetoes within the Union, and in what ways might deep internal polarization between pro-European and pro-Russian constituencies undermine the legitimacy of this process by opening space for populist mobilization and authoritarian retrenchment?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: Internal geopolitical polarization is a serious problem in Moldova, but it is also important to remember that polarization is a fluid phenomenon. Polling, for instance, used to show much stronger support for integration with Russian projects even 10 or 20 years ago, and much less support for NATO membership. This shows that polarization can shift over time.
The strategy of Moldovan authorities has been to make a compelling economic, or quality-of-life, case for EU integration, even in regions where the political dimension of integration is less popular. In places like Gagauzia and parts of northern Moldova, the aim is to erode polarization by demonstrating the tangible economic benefits of closer ties with the EU. If successful, this could help offset some of the effects of geopolitical polarization by easing tensions.
So, the biggest question isn’t really polarization, but whether pro-EU forces can articulate and illustrate the benefits of EU integration clearly to more people, including those in pro-Russian propaganda bubbles. To a large extent, integration by 2030 is driven more by the speed with which Moldovan authorities can enact reforms, by developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and also by the situation in Transnistria—which we can talk about—and what exactly Moldovan authorities are going to do with that separatist region.
The Cyprus Model Is a Real Option for Moldova
Monument to Vladimir Lenin in front of the Parliament building in Tiraspol, Transnistria, Moldova. Photo: Dreamstime.
Given the persistence of Russian troops in Transnistria, how does the unresolved status of the region constrain Moldova’s European ambitions and its sovereignty more broadly?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: The number of Russian troops in Transnistria isn’t sufficient to threaten Moldova’s European ambitions or its sovereignty. Greater risks could come from a hypothetical mobilization of a large part of the Transnistrian population during a potential conflict, but that scenario carries its own difficulties. Nor does the Russian military presence pose an immediate threat to sovereignty in the sense that Moldova is able to control most of its territory fairly effectively, aside from Transnistria. In that respect, it is not an urgent danger.
The war in Ukraine has also constrained Transnistria’s potentially aggressive orientation, or even its foreign policy toward Ukraine, Moldova, and the EU more broadly. Within Moldova, there is a growing sense that EU integration must move forward and can happen without Transnistria. Moldovan authorities have explicitly stated that it is possible for Moldova to join the EU first, using the Cyprus model. Cyprus is a common example cited by Moldovan officials and has even been echoed by former EU leaders. José Manuel Barroso, for instance, recently affirmed that the Cyprus model is indeed a possibility for Moldova.
At this stage, Chișinău does not view Transnistria as an obstacle to EU integration. Instead, it argues that pre-integration measures demonstrating the economic benefits of EU membership will gradually draw Transnistria closer. If necessary, Moldova can join the EU without Transnistria and then work toward integrating the region into the Union over the longer term.
Populists Give Moscow Veto Power over Moldova’s EU Path
Lastly, Professor Cantir, what scenarios do you consider most plausible for the future of the Transnistria conflict: gradual reintegration under EU auspices, continued limbo, or renewed escalation tied to Russia’s strategic setbacks in Ukraine? And in any of these scenarios, how might populist or authoritarian actors instrumentalize the issue domestically to challenge Moldova’s European orientation?
Assoc. Prof. Cristian Cantir: The most important point to note—the elephant in the room—is that everything depends on how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfolds. If Ukraine manages to resist in the south and hold Odessa, then what we are most likely to see, at least in the short term, is the maintenance of the status quo. The EU would continue efforts to trade with, develop, and engage local organizations in Transnistria—essentially trying to connect the region more closely to Europe, with the long-term goal of gradual reintegration. That will be the general orientation, or at least the attempt, always contingent on developments in Ukraine and particularly in Odessa.
When it comes to the question of populist or authoritarian actors instrumentalizing the issue, one of the biggest patterns to watch in the next few years in Moldova is how they frame the argument about the Cyprus model. PAS has argued that Moldova can join the EU without Transnistria first. By contrast, many other actors—including pro-Russian politicians in the Patriotic Bloc, the largest opposition group in Parliament, as well as Alternativa, a centrist, self-defined pro-EU bloc—have insisted that Moldova must not enter the EU without Transnistria. In effect, this position grants Transnistria—and, to some extent, Moscow—veto power over Moldova’s EU integration aspirations.
So, populist politicians and authoritarian actors in Moldova will seek to instrumentalize the Transnistria issue by insisting that the country must not—and cannot—join the EU without first resolving the conflict. This, of course, significantly prolongs the timeline and effectively ties Moldova’s European integration to Moscow’s willingness to settle the dispute.
