EU Analytics – February 2026 review: The power shifts in EU migration policy

By Nicolai von Ondarza

EU migration policy is now effectively decided by a centre-right to far-right majority in the European Parliament.

February certainly ended with another seismic event for European politics, with the US/Israel war against Iran starting and quickly spiralling out to the wider region. As I am writing this monthly review in early March, the military threat comes closer and closer, all the way to hits to Cyprus (on the sovereign territory of UK bases).

To some extent, this overshadows the fact that February has been another month of high-stakes votes in both the EU Parliament and the Council, in particular regarding the designation of “safe third countries of origin” in asylum policy. The votes in both legislative chambers underlined how much the political mood has swung in the EU, and how strongly the now regular cooperation of centre-right and far right is determining EU policy in this area.

At the same time, votes on foreign policy such as the Ukraine loan and on Iran show where the centre is holding, and where it is fracturing. Time to dive in:

Highlight of the month: Twin votes on list of “safe third countries”

For the deep dive of this month, I was torn between the votes on the Ukraine loan (which I have looked into on Bluesky), which showed where the centre held and where it was fractured (hint: France), and the twin votes in the EP and Council on the “safe third countries” list. I decided to opt for the latter since it shows how much the EU political majorities on migration are shifting.

In terms of policies, the debate on “safe third countries” hides a large shift. It is essentially a debate about which countries EU member states can deport migrants back to. This was not just a question of law and whether the respective countries are indeed safe. Rather, much like the Rwanda scheme in the UK and the Albania scheme in Italy, the decisions adopted in the EU in February were aimed at making a political decision on which third countries are deemed safe, in order to speed up and widen deportations. This is a policy aim first advocated by the far right, but increasingly also adopted by the centre-right and parts of the centre-left, such as the Social Democrats in Denmark.

Data source: Council of the EU. (Click to enlarge.)

In consequence, the votes in both the EP and the Council revealed new divisions. Let us start with the Council, which adopted a “Regulation as regards the application of the ‘safe third country’ concept” on the 23 of February 2026. The vote was highly unusual in two ways: On the one hand, it was adopted by a surprisingly close margin, with only 71.2% in favour and 28.8% against (the required quorum in qualified majority voting is 65%).

On the other hand, it was also about who was outvoted: France, which is almost never outvoted, together with Spain and Portugal, who are now at the margins of EU migration policy. Instead, amongst national governments, the dominant forces are now those from the centre-right, Nordic centre-left, and far right, driving the EU towards a hardening of its stance.

Data source: HowTheyVote.EU. (Click to enlarge.)

Now, let us look at the European Parliament. Here, the vote in the graph above shows a picture that is familiar by now: a clear left-right division, with a majority composed of the centre-right EPP plus the three far-right groups ECR, PfE and ESN winning the vote. There are a few rebels from the centre-left S&D and the liberal Renew, so that at least those in the EPP can say that the most extreme MEPs from the AfD-led ESN were not crucial to winning the vote.

What is novel here is that, unlike the Omnibus I votes, there was never any doubt in the plenary which majority would win the day: The EPP was clear that it would vote with the far right, even if it still says that there is no official coordination. What is clear from the data is that there were three votes on migration in the February session, and all of them were won by the “Venezuela” majority – clearly no accident or political coincidence.

Source: Own calculation, based on data from HowTheyVote.EU. (Click to enlarge.)

The pattern becomes even more revealing if you look at the political groups’ co-voting behaviour in all the plenary votes in this legislative period on migration policy. Here the real switch becomes apparent: The EPP has, on migration policy, voted more often with the national-conservative ECR, the right-wing populist “Patriots for Europe” of Viktor Orbán and Jordan Bardella and even the more extremist “Europe of Sovereign Nations” led by the AfD than it has voted with the centre-left or the Liberals.

Taken together, EU migration policy in this legislative period is effectively decided by a centre-right to far-right majority in the European Parliament and a majority of right-wing leaning national governments in the Council.

Final votes in the European Parliament

In February 2026, the EP had one major plenary session from 9-12 February and a short, symbolic one focused on Ukraine on 24 February. In terms of the votes, the plenary session had 22 votes recorded at HowTheyVote.EU. On those, I already wrote a flash analysis with a look at who won the votes, the coalitions, where the far right mattered, and on the group coherence. This will therefore be a shorter cross-cutting look.

First, as expected, the snapback to the “von der Leyen” majority observed in January turned out to be an outlier. In February, the EP had more of the characteristics of a parliament with a minority government. The “von der Leyen” platform won only about 75 per cent of the votes, while five votes, including all those on migration, were won by the “Venezuela” majority of centre-right and far right.

If this continues, to me it really means that effectively the European Parliament is working on two separate, but clearly established formations now. This graph of voting agreements between the blocks show the downward trend amongst the centre-right and centre-left “von der Leyen” platform, as well as the inverse trend of all three far-right parties voting with each other.

Source: Own calculation based on voting data from HowTheyVote.EU. (Click to enlarge.)

The other notable data point is the behaviour of the S&D and Renew towards the EPP. Although there is now a pattern of the EPP voting with the far right on several issues, there is an equally clear dynamic that the centre-left and Liberals are not willing to break the von der Leyen platform. As they have no ability to construct a majority with the left alone, they each face the difficult choice of either accepting that the EPP now regularly goes against their interests or going into opposition mode, knowing that then the far right would be even more influential.

So far, it is clear that both opt for option 1. Overall, the S&D now votes noticeably more often with Renew and the Greens than with the EPP, and in February even more often with the Left than the EPP. A further move towards a left-right division in European politics.

Additionally, a sizeable number of rebels in the S&D, and even more in Renew, regularly also votes with the EPP even when it votes with the far right. This has the “bonus” that, technically, the most extremist AfD-led group ESN is not required for the Venezuela majority then. It also underscores that, in particular on migration, there are quite a few MEPs from the centre-left and liberal spectrum who also want to take the hard turn.

Source: Own calculation based on voting data from HowTheyVote.EU. (Click to enlarge.)

Public votes in the Council of the EU

For monitoring the Council votes, the analysis builds upon the public votes published, which are always fewer. For February 2026, there were a total of 10 public votes, which included quite a few important ones:

• Of the 10 votes, only 4 were adopted unanimously. The other six had at least abstentions (3) or one or several no votes (3). This continues the trend of recent months that less decisions are adopted by consensus.
• The decisions with no votes included setting up the Ukraine loan facility, where only Hungary voted against, despite not contributing to the Enhanced Cooperation. While this vote was by QMV, the loan also needs a unanimous decision to borrow on the EU budget, which Hungary is currently blocking – contrary to the promises given by Orbán at the December European Council.
• The vote covered above on “list of safe third countries” is also notable for being the first instance in years that France was outvoted on a public vote – right on the back of also being outvoted on the Mercosur Trade Agreement.
• Finally, I noted that Czechia, under the new Babiš government, is moving a bit to the margins. After not having been outvoted at all in the previous 12 months, in February it abstained and voted no once each, plus staying on the outside of the Enhanced Cooperation for the Ukraine loan.

Nicolai von Ondarza is Head of the Research Division EU/Europe of the German Institute of International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik).

EU Analytics is a monthly column by Nicolai von Ondarza. It focuses on data-driven analysis of EU institutional affairs, looking at voting in the European Parliament and the public votes of the Council of the EU. The articles are cross-posted here from Nicolai’s own newsletter on Substack, where he occasionally also does other institutional analysis.

Pictures: EP plenary cartoon: Nicolai von Ondarza, with Google Gemini [all rights reserved]; portrait Nicolai von Ondarza: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik [all rights reserved].