For both its centrist supporters and conservative opponents, the European Union has for the most part represented a liberal face on the world stage, the antithesis of Trumpian brash nationalism. And yet it’s now Europe crying “build the wall,” as last week, the special EU Council pledged “substantial” new funds for weapons, surveillance, and speeding up deportations.

The debate leading up to the special council was as fractious as ever. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni spent the previous week on tour acting as shop steward to Europe’s nativists, demanding even more funding for border fences and sharper controls. She was joined by her Swedish conservative counterpart Ulf Kristersson; the fact that Sweden now holds the EU Council presidency was never going to bode well for the summit.

Meloni’s government has attempted to ban foreign search-and-rescue vessels from docking in Italy altogether, alongside pledging a naval blockade. Both of these things have proved difficult to deliver in practice, but her policies — such as forcing rescue vessels to land in ever-more inconvenient locations and banning them from carrying out multiple rescues in one voyage — continue to harass humanitarians. More deaths in the central Mediterranean are a certain result.