Denmark’s social democratic leader voiced support for EU efforts to open deportation centers outside the bloc, highlighting the European left’s harsher approach to immigration as it looks to quell the rise of the far right.
Mette Frederiksen has in recent years become a figurehead for the argument that progressives can further other left-wing policies if they take a harsh anti-immigration line.
Her joining other European leaders in calling for human rights standards to be relaxed to clear roadblocks to deportations follows the UK’s outgoing center-left prime minister trumpeting his own crackdown on immigration in his resignation speech.
However, some are moving against the tide: Spain recently granted legal status to 500,000 undocumented workers, despite opposition from the surging right.
