They loved each other so much. Then the invasion of migrants in Ceuta began. AND Mette Frederiksena case neither unique nor rare in the European left, caused the socialists to explode, choosing to side with Giorgia Meloni in border defense. And of the “Christian cultural heritage” of the continent, of which the two leaders of Denmark and Italy, in a joint message following the clash over the suspension of Schengen between Rome and Madrid, proclaimed themselves “proud”. Even though they come from different backgrounds and sides.
The move shocked the Socialist Party of the EUwhich reacted with a letter of complaints to its president, the former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, signed by the number two of the European Parliament, the Spaniard Javi López, and by the Foreign Minister of the Democratic Party, Peppe Provenzano. Who defined Frederiksen’s decision to “align himself, in a coordinated way, with the Italian Prime Minister” as “unacceptable”. But the reasons for Copenhagen go far beyond political affiliations. The social democracy of the Scandinavian country plays a lot on migrants.
The strategic convergence between Copenhagen and Rome on repatriations
His security turnaround had begun before the March elections, which resulted in the reconfirmation of Frederiksen, albeit weakened. In his New Year’s speech, the prime minister announced a crackdown on foreign criminals: anyone without citizenship who had been sentenced to at least one year in prison for serious crimes, such as rape and assault, would be expelled. Shortly before, together with the United Kingdom, the Denmark had called for a revision of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), to facilitate the rejection of unwanted persons.
Already in 2019, the Social Democratic Party had launched a program of entry restrictions. A commitment that has led to a reduction in asylum requests and an increase in repatriations. On the other hand, the convergence with Meloni was not limited to the letter of a few weeks ago: Frederiksen is one of the most convinced supporters of hubs in third countries for quick expulsions. A model similar to the one started by Palazzo Chigi in Albania, net of the interminable tug-of-war with the judiciary. At least on paper, theEU he “blessed” it with the new system of rules that came into force in June, even if there are no political agreements between the Union and the states of origin and transit. There is only a substantial green light for anyone who wants to follow that road independently.
The short circuit between social spending and mass immigration
The Danish population’s intolerance towards mass immigration has a double root: it has to do with the crime rates of foreigners, especially the second generations, but also with the specifics of the Scandinavian welfare model, whose stability has been put to the test by foreigners.
In January 2026, there were 1,011,036 people in Denmark, including immigrants and their descendants; 16.8% of the total population. The cost of caring for this mass of foreigners, mostly coming from the Middle East and Africa, is over 3 billion euros a year.
If we consider that the last Danish budget law was worth 80, it is easy to understand that Copenhagen is the classic case of incompatibility between the welfare state and mass immigration, theorized by Milton Friedman. In a speech in 1977, the American libertarian economist was very clear: “If you have a welfare state, if you have a state in which every resident is promised a certain minimum level of income or a minimum level of subsistence, regardless of whether he works or not, whether he produces or not” then you will not be able to have both welfare and immigration. It is the intuition that was further developed by George Borjas and Lynette Hilton, who in 1996 published Immigration and the welfare State, certifying that it was low-skilled immigrants – of the type who arrive, precisely, from the Middle East and Africa in Europe – who received the majority of redistributive benefits. It is a circumstance that, little by little, those who roll up their sleeves every day and pay their taxes, counting on the bond of solidarity that unites the community in the protection of their poorest compatriots, begin to perceive it as an injustice.
Data on the security and stability of the liberal model
Then, there is the security issue. The verdict of the statistics is as predictable as it is unappealable. If the crime index of male Danes is made 100, that of non-Western immigrants, after introducing a corrective factor for age, turns out to be 137; that of second generation immigrants even jumps to 245. To justify the perception of the man in the street on the dangers of the invasion, then, there is the raw data. The one that is not standardized by age class (a popular practice to eliminate the influence of some variables, such as the greater propensity to commit crimes among younger people): the Maranza crime index, naked and raw, rises to 316. In simple words: the descendants of immigrants commit crimes between 2.45 and 3.16 times more than the natives.
Finally, let’s not forget the cultural element: in their appeal, Meloni and Frederiksen spoke of “Christian heritage”. A part of the left faces reality: instead of integrating foreigners, an open society risks, in the long run, absorbing their inferior customs. It’s the old jurist’s paradox Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenfördeapplied to the migratory phenomenon: the liberal State, by welcoming too many foreign elements, erodes the assumptions on which it is based. The Islamist attacks of 2015 in Copenhagen will certainly be imprinted in the memory of every Dane, when a fundamentalist, perhaps intending to kill the cartoonist Lars Vilks for his cartoon of Muhammad portrayed with the features of a dog, killed the director Finn Nørgaard (present at the same conference with the artist) and, later, murdered a young Jew in the synagogue.
Frederiksen’s flexibility allowed her to limit the rise of the radical right. The Danish People’s Party, promoter of the border lockout, regained support in 2026, obtaining 16 seats; but it is far from the 37 achieved 11 years ago, as well as from the over 20 that he had consistently maintained from 2001 onwards. It is a feat that German social democracy failed to achieve: when, in September 2024, the former chancellor Olaf Scholz woke up from his torpor by reinstating border controls in reaction to the Islamist attack in Solingen, it was too late to avoid an electoral collapse. It seems to be the same fate he faces Pedro Sanchez: a poll published by El Mundo and dating back even before the Ceuta crisis, assigned a parliamentary supermajority to Popolari and Vox. Here: for Frederiksen, the axis with Meloni is a sign of political intelligence. Self-preservation instinct.
