Politico: EU faces potential refugee wave from Iran war

The European Union is preparing for a possible influx of refugees fleeing the war in Iran, according to four national migration ministers, as the bloc tests its recently reformed migration rules.

More than a million people sought asylum in Europe in 2015, many escaping Syria’s civil war. The EU’s uneven response exposed deep divisions, prompting years of negotiations to overhaul migration policy. The reforms aim to distribute migrants more evenly among member states and speed up deportations of failed asylum-seekers, according to Politico.

With the new rules set to come into force in the coming weeks, the ongoing violence in the Middle East could provide an early stress test. Two weeks after U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, Tehran has launched counterattacks across the region, including in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, while Israel has signaled plans to expand strikes into Lebanon.

The human toll is mounting. Hundreds have been killed, and hundreds of thousands displaced. Lebanon alone is nearing one million displaced people, according to Othman Belbeisi, IOM’s Regional Director for the Middle East.

For now, the U.N. migration agency reports no large-scale movement toward Europe. But the region, long battered by conflict, already hosts some 19 million displaced people, raising concerns that the situation could worsen.

In a pre-war report, the EU’s asylum agency warned that Iran, with a population of 90 million, could produce refugee movements “of an unprecedented magnitude” if even partially destabilised.

The memory of 2015 still shapes Europe’s approach. That year, roughly one million people sought asylum, half fleeing Syria. EU countries criticised Greece, which bore the brunt of arrivals, for its handling of the crisis. Many states reinstated border controls and delayed an emergency relocation plan, exposing the bloc’s fragile unity.

Spain has since signaled a more open stance, announcing plans to regularise 500,000 undocumented migrants.

“In 2015, we were able to face an important movement of refugees coming from Syria,” Home Affairs Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told POLITICO. “So if it’s necessary, it’s not going to be any kind of problem to receive refugees coming from the East.”

Other EU ministers remain cautious.

“A new refugee crisis … is not an option for us,” Sweden’s Migration Minister Johan Forssel said. He warned that “we are still seeing the consequences of what happened 10 years ago. And that’s not just the situation in Sweden, but I would say elsewhere in Europe too.”

By Sabina Mammadli