Mette Frederiksen’s migration policy has opened a new dispute inside the European socialist family. Senior figures from Italy’s Democratic Party and Spain’s Socialist Party have formally criticised the Danish prime minister for siding with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during the recent migration crisis in Ceuta, calling their increasingly close political cooperation on migration “unacceptable”.
Peppe Provenzano, the Democratic Party’s foreign affairs chief, and Javi López, a Spanish Socialist politician and vice-president of the European Parliament, wrote to Party of European Socialists president Stefan Löfven, asking that Frederiksen’s position be discussed at the next available meeting of the European socialist political family.
The dispute is significant because Frederiksen leads Denmark’s Social Democrats (Socialdemokratiet), while Meloni comes from a very different political tradition. Yet migration has become an area of increasingly structured cooperation between the two leaders.
Italy and Spain attack Frederiksen’s migration policy
In their letter, Provenzano and López argued that “European solidarity cannot be selective”, criticising Frederiksen for supporting Meloni while Spain was dealing with the consequences of the mass border crossings into Ceuta.
Their strongest criticism concerned Italy’s decision to temporarily reintroduce checks on some travellers arriving from Spain after the Ceuta crisis. Madrid described the measures as unjustified and discriminatory, while Rome said they were necessary to reduce potential migration and security risks.
The Italian and Spanish socialists accused Frederiksen of joining Meloni in presenting migration through what they described as the political framework of the radical right.
They also pointed to falling irregular arrivals in Europe and argued that migration was still being portrayed as a permanent emergency despite the decline. According to the letter, this contributed to a politically advantageous climate of fear.
The two politicians asked Stefan Löfven, Sweden’s former Social Democratic prime minister and current president of the Party of European Socialists, to put the Ceuta dispute on the agenda of the organisation’s next meeting.
Why Ceuta created a dispute between Italy and Spain
The confrontation follows the migration crisis in Ceuta, Spain’s autonomous territory on the North African coast, where tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco in a short period at the end of July.
Italy subsequently introduced additional border checks for non-EU nationals arriving from Spain. The Spanish government strongly contested the measure, arguing that people who had entered Ceuta irregularly could not simply move onwards through the Schengen area.
Most of those who crossed into Ceuta had already returned to Morocco within days, while there was no evidence of a significant movement towards Italy.
The disagreement rapidly developed into a broader diplomatic dispute between Meloni and Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, with Madrid threatening reciprocal measures against Italy.
Frederiksen, however, repeatedly sided with the stricter approach promoted by Rome and argued that the Ceuta crisis demonstrated the need for stronger European migration controls.
The Frederiksen-Meloni migration alliance is becoming more visible
The controversy also reflects a much broader political relationship between the Danish and Italian prime ministers.
On 10 August, Frederiksen and Meloni published a joint statement rejecting what they called “uncontrolled immigration” and demanding a stricter European approach to irregular migration.
They backed stronger external borders, more deportations and return centres in third countries, while arguing that European governments need more tools to remove people without a right to remain.
The two prime ministers also presented their cooperation as a deliberate partnership despite their different political backgrounds. Their coordination on migration has increasingly extended to the European level, where Denmark and Italy have worked with other governments to push for tougher common policies before meetings of the European Council.
Their latest joint intervention went beyond border management. Frederiksen and Meloni also referred to the protection of Europe’s Christian cultural heritage and said migrants should respect European laws and values.
Such language helps explain why the alliance has become particularly uncomfortable for parts of the European centre-left. Frederiksen is not simply pursuing a restrictive Danish migration policy. She is increasingly cooperating with one of Europe’s most prominent right-wing leaders in an attempt to influence the direction of EU migration policy.
Denmark’s Social Democrats are not backing down
The criticism from the Italian and Spanish parties has not prompted a change of course in Copenhagen.
According to Euractiv, the Danish Social Democrats responded by reiterating their commitment to a strict immigration policy and the principle that Denmark must retain control over how many people enter the country.
That position is consistent with the political strategy Frederiksen and her party have pursued for years. Denmark’s Social Democrats have combined traditional centre-left positions on welfare and public services with some of Europe’s most restrictive migration policies.
The approach has often been presented by Frederiksen as necessary to preserve public support for the welfare state and maintain political control over migration.
What is changing is the European dimension. The Danish strategy is increasingly being promoted not only as a domestic model but as part of a broader coalition of governments seeking to move EU migration policy towards stronger externalisation, faster returns and stricter controls.
A growing argument inside European social democracy
The dispute therefore goes beyond the events in Ceuta.
For the Italian and Spanish parties, Frederiksen’s cooperation with Meloni risks normalising a political framework traditionally associated with Europe’s right and far right. For the Danish Social Democrats, restrictive migration policy is instead compatible with social democratic politics and is considered essential to maintaining public confidence in the state.
That disagreement is becoming harder for the Party of European Socialists to avoid.
Frederiksen remains one of the most prominent social democratic heads of government in Europe, but on migration she increasingly finds political allies outside her own European political family.
The requested discussion within the PES could therefore become a wider argument about whether the Danish approach represents an exceptional national strategy or one possible future for European social democracy itself.
