What do we do with our borders? The right-wing shift in the European political climate in recent years has meant a higher degree of securitisation. At the same time, some are calling for border controls to be reduced or even abolished. Perhaps the answer lies in a change of perspective; a new outlook free from the shackles of capitalism and inspired by degrowth.
Recent national and European elections have marked a shift to the right in European politics. While the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally, RN) failed to win a majority in France’s parliamentary election, it will still be the most represented party in the French Parliament. In other European countries, such as Italy, Finland, and the Netherlands, radical right forces have formed coalition governments.
One of the driving factors behind the success of right-wing forces has been their framing of migration as a key security issue. In the run-up to the European elections, a survey in Germany found that 41 per cent of the population considers refugees, immigration, asylum politics, and integration as the most important problem for the European Union. This widespread perception of out-of-control immigration to the EU has also led once-moderate political forces to promise stricter border enforcement and rapid deportations, in an (often unsuccessful) attempt to take votes away from the far right.
In December 2023, France passed a controversial bill toughening its immigration policies, while in March this year, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) expressed its support for Rwanda-style deportation deals with non-EU countries. Moreover, In April, the EU adopted the new Asylum and Migration Pact after eight long years of negotiations; and shortly before the European elections, Brussels signed a new agreement to contain immigration from Lebanon.
Right-wing narratives have also linked migration to climate change. While far-right forces are known for their scepticism towards anthropogenic climate change, they have progressively shifted away from pure denialism towards instrumentalising global warming and ecological crises for political purposes. These narratives advocate for tighter border protection by casting migrants as responsible for environmental degradation and framing climate-induced migration as a security threat.
Ahead of the 2019 European elections, the Rassemblement National’s Jordan Bardella stated that “borders are the environment’s greatest ally; it is through them that we will save the planet.”
This emergent discourse of “ecobordering” draws on (neo-)colonial, racialised, and neo-Malthusian logics to present borders as environmental protection and climate solutions. As researchers Joe Turner and Dan Bailey explain, the aspiration behind ecobordering is to “obscure the primary driving causes of the ecological crisis in the entrenched production and consumption practices of Global North economies”, blaming ecological degradation in the Global South instead.
Through the divisive strategy of scapegoating “the other”, these narratives seek to hide responsibilities for a long history of colonialism, exploitation and violence that extend into the present.
Inaction and militarisation
In recent years, the degrowth movement has increasingly taken issue with global power dynamics and structural drivers of inequality. There is a growing understanding that if degrowth does not converge with demands from the Global South, it risks turning into an “inward-looking, provincial, localised, and eventually exclusive project” that perpetuates the “imperial mode of living” of the Global North.
However, degrowth has yet to develop a comprehensive border perspective that goes beyond local solutions like open localism. Such a perspective must take into account the capitalist system’s fundamental need for borders, as well as the rise of ecobordering narratives.
In the current capitalist system, the “deep hegemony of borders” is perceived as common sense across a wide spectrum of political actors. In Europe, for example, liberal and progressive actors have justified increased border protection with the need to protect and promote “our European way of life”.
If it wants to challenge the capitalist system of global exploitation, degrowth needs to call into question the border apparatus through which this system protects and perpetuates itself.
The mainstreaming of securitisation discourses has also led to higher spending in the border security and surveillance industry. In 1990, there were no fences at the external borders of the EU/Schengen area. In 2014, the length of border fences was 315 km. By 2022, it was 2,048 km – 13 per cent of the EU’s external land borders.
Reflecting this shift in border policies, the budget for the European border and coast guard agency Frontex rose by 2,763 per cent between 2005 and 2020. From 2021-2027, the agency will be provided with 5.6 billion euros – a 194 per cent increase compared to the previous budgetary cycle. Rich countries currently spend 2.3 times more money on border securitisation than on climate finance.
Given that one of the aims of degrowth is to downsize those branches of the economy that are socially and ecologically harmful, border enforcement needs to be put under the spotlight. Indeed, besides its huge human costs, the border security industry has been found to be “profiteering from climate change”. While prospects of climate-induced migration have played a role in border securitisation, another important factor is the nexus between fossil fuel firms and border policing: the same private industries that provide border protection to rich countries also offer their services to the oil industry. This shows how “climate inaction and militarised responses to its consequences increasingly work hand in hand.”
Degrowth and freedom of movement
So far, degrowth has engaged only marginally with the topic of borders and (im-)migration. In his book Degrowth (2018), Giorgos Kallis dedicates a small section to the issue, dismantling the claim by American economist Herman Daly that immigration poses a threat to a steady-state (or post-growth) economy. ‘
According to Daly, the population growth associated with migration inflows leads to more economic growth. Daly draws on American ecologist Garett Hardins’ “lifeboat ethics”, which claims that each state, similarly to a boat, can only take a certain number of people before exceeding its social and ecological capacities. Kallis rejects that assumption based, among other things, on the observation that countries are not closed containers whose environmental impacts are confined to their national boundaries. He concludes that there is no ecological case for closed borders and no evidence that immigration poses a risk to degrowth.
At the same time, Kallis warns against understanding degrowth as being in favour of open borders, as such a policy might fundamentally undermine the nation-state. While its role continues to be debated within the degrowth community, the state is still seen by many as an essential actor for a social-ecological transformation. The call for open borders or the slogan “No borders, no nation” has also been criticised from the Left for acting as an “empty provocation” that risks to steer and increase existing fears around the competition for public goods, leading to anti-immigration sentiments and the rise of the far-right.
Drawing attention to the narrow scope of the ongoing debate around degrowth and borders, German sociologist Miriam Lang argues that it is not enough to simply ask for open borders. According to Lang, such a call must consider and criticise how the “imperial mode of living” of rich countries, its associated North-South relationships, and the dominant understanding of a good life are linked to the overall structural crisis of capitalism and the current climate catastrophe.
This debate shows that degrowth still needs to develop a coherent border perspective as part of its project of deep socioecological transformation. What is clear, however, is that a degrowth case for open borders cannot be based on neoliberal or utilitarian considerations that frame immigration as a solution to demographic decline, ageing populations, or a shortage of skilled labour. Rather, a degrowth border perspective should be built on the acknowledgement of historic and present-day responsibilities, as well as principles of solidarity and humanity.
Concrete proposals could include providing safe passages, revising visa and residence laws, and building necessary social infrastructures. The money currently being spent for the securitisation of borders could be redirected towards socially useful projects to assure that everyone has the right to decent housing and the means to adapt to the consequences of climate change.
Global freedom of movement entails the right to move, but also the right to remain – that is, the assurance that one’s livelihood is not endangered by the advance of the capitalist system and the economic growth of rich countries. A degrowth border perspective based on these principles can act as a strong counter-proposal to the divisive narrative of ecobordering.
