Letter to Manfred Weber, Chair of the EPP Group, by FEPS President Nicolas Schmit 

Dear Mr Weber,

You are European, but also German. One should be entitled to expect from you a particular understanding of history. In recent months, however, you have shown that such an understanding is rather completely alien to you. That ought, in fact, to disqualify you entirely from holding important responsibilities in Europe. European politics must be about shaping the future, but not without keeping sight of our past at the same time, with its dramatic events, which ultimately led to the process of European unification.

You are responsible for what happened on 16 June in the European Parliament in relation to the vote on the Return Regulation. This regulation violates essential principles of European law. It deprives people whose only ‘crime’ is being accused of irregularly staying in the EU of fundamental rights — rights that make the European Union what it is and, one hopes, what it will remain: a “community based on the rule of law”. 

People, adults as well as children, who are staying ‘illegally’ on the territory of an EU Member State and, for whatever reason, cannot be returned to their country of origin, may be held in detention for up to 24 months, which, in specific circumstances, can be extended by an additional six months. This roughly corresponds to offences under German criminal law, such as aggravated theft, bodily harm, robbery, or narcotics law offences. Thus, people whose only offence is seeking a better life are criminalised and equated with offenders.

However, this regulation goes much further. This explains why the far right is triumphant. Jordan Bardella speaks of a great victory. The AfD applauds the EU’s asylum policy.

You, Mr Weber, have made a decisive contribution to allowing the far right, the enemies of Europe, to implement their programme.

This includes the possibility of setting up so-called ‘return hubs’ in third countries, to which people can be transferred and then held in deportation detention for an unlimited period, without legal guarantees. The fact that such centres are specifically called ‘hubs’ – and the Commission is responsible for this – surpasses every kind of hypocrisy. In reality, they are a new type of ‘concentration camp’, established by EU Member States in third countries and in which people with no connection to that third country are locked away for an indefinite period.

This idea is not new. It was already tried in Rwanda by a conservative British government, without much success. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has also tried to set up such camps in Albania. So far, however, she has failed thanks to the resistance from Italian judges. A final assessment of its compatibility with European law is still pending. Yet it is already clear that safeguarding the EU rights granted to those affected is an absolute condition. This, however, is not guaranteed in the Return Regulation.

Added to this legal dimension is the fundamental question: is a European Union that outsources parts of its immigration policy to third countries – which, in most cases, do not meet rule-of-law and human rights requirements – still truly credible with regard to its own values?

The  Memorandum of Understanding between the European Union and Tunisia, brokered in 2023 by Commission President von der Leyen, together with Meloni and the then Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, has drawn the strongest criticism. The externalisation of migration policies is making the European Union complicit in Tunisia’s systematic violation of human rights and violence against immigrants.

The fact that far-right extremists in the European Parliament scandalously shout “Send them back!” does not seem to disturb you particularly, Mr Weber. Is this due to your limited understanding of history, or to your opportunistic political stance? Those shouts ought to remind you of what the Nazis systematically carried out in the Reichstag until German democracy was destroyed. You have opened that door to the far right.

The firewall has been torn down in Europe. Why should it not collapse completely in Germany as well? In other countries, the European People’s Party have already opened the door to the far-right in mainstream politics. 

The cry of “Send them back!” goes far beyond the Return Regulation. Marion Maréchal, a member of the European Parliament and the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, has already clearly hinted at this. The AfD has been pushing for ‘remigration’, which is an euphemism for mass expulsion of migrants, regardless of their legal status. Just as Trump is setting the example in the United States with ICE, millions of people are also to be deported from Europe. This too is a sinister historical reminder that you – especially as a German – cannot simply ignore.

It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the idea of ‘remigration’, which is spreading ever further than far-right circles. It is based on the racist and xenophobic conspiracy theory of the ‘great replacement’. This theory is as deranged as the racist and antisemitic theories of the Nazis and their far-right allies, and yet the latter were implemented with indescribable brutality. 

To ignore this is serious misconduct. You are doing Europe no service with this. For opportunistic reasons, you are accepting a major risk for European democracy and its values. Conservatives have once before underestimated the danger of right-wing extremism – with the consequences we all know.

As chair of the largest group in the European Parliament, you have taken on a major responsibility. The EPP likes to invoke its Christian values. But you trample those values consistently. Instead of listening to the Pope, you run after the far-right extremists who despise human beings. And in doing so, you even believe yourself to be a great political strategist.

One final piece of advice: read Cardinal Victor Fernández’s 26 June speech, in which he speaks, among other things, about the “acceptance of inconsistency as a strategy”, which is prevailing in the European Union. It would show that, in politics today, “there is no longer a stable framework of truth and values”. How right he is!

To the other pro-democratic members of the European Parliament who, for whatever reasons, allowed themselves to be persuaded to vote for this Return Regulation, I say: one does not fight far-right extremists by adopting their ideas and allowing them to win in a shameful way.

By Nicolas Schmit, FEPS President and former Spitzenkandidat