Over 1.2mn people came to the EU seeking protection in 2015, many displaced by worsening conflict in Syria. There were bitter political feuds in Brussels over asylum, border and relocation policies. January 2016 set a grim record for the number of migrants dying while attempting to cross the Mediterranean.

Now things have changed, as European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen made clear in December when she took the stage at a conference on migrant smuggling. After a major policy overhaul over the past two years, “Europe is managing migration responsibly,” she said. “The figures speak for themselves.”

Irregular arrivals of migrants to the EU recorded by its border agency Frontex dropped by 25 per cent in the 11 months to November 2024, and have been continuously declining since a recent peak of 380,000 arrivals registered in 2023.

New asylum applications have also decreased by around 26 per cent in the first nine months of last year, according to Eurostat data, as fewer Syrians are applying for protection since the fall of the authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.

Here is much more from Laura Dubois from the FT.