In an interview with EL PAÍS, Martin Sellner said his Institute for Remigration intends to establish a presence in Spain and develop proposals for mass expulsions there. He gave no date for the start. Sellner also confirmed contact with Vox but did not name his interlocutors. An Austrian far-right activist, he is associated with the modern remigration movement. Its proposals can extend beyond people without legal status to legally resident migrants and, in some versions, naturalised citizens.
The plans remain proposals. Sellner leads the Austria-based Instituto para la Remigración, which opened its first European branch in Sajonia-Anhalt during the summer. At the time of the interview, Spanish associates were preparing a document on migration that would set out how many people should be expelled. Sellner said it would focus mainly on people from Africa and also address the Latin American community. Spain’s foreign-born population has risen by 3.5 million since 2019 to about 10 million, close to one in five residents, as the country’s total population approaches 50 million, the Irish Times reported, citing national statistics. The figure measures birthplace, not nationality, and includes naturalised Spanish citizens.
Sellner intends to share the document with political parties. He cited Vox deputy Rocío de Meer’s participation in the Cumbre de Remigración, a conference he organised in Porto in May. De Meer has publicly promoted remigration and national preference. Vox has also opposed the Sánchez government’s migration policies, including an amnesty affecting as many as 1.2 million people who were in Spain irregularly, the Irish Times reported. RUSSPAIN has also covered a JEC case concerning Pedro Sánchez’s election-period video in an earlier election report.
Sellner’s proposals go beyond deporting people without Spanish nationality. In his book Remigración, una propuesta, he advocates withdrawing citizenship from naturalised people who cannot demonstrate assimilation and returning them to their countries of origin. For Germany, the book proposes expelling seven million foreigners over 15 years, alongside several million German citizens with international roots over three decades. These are proposals, not enacted policy. The broader remigration agenda drew wider attention after a January 2024 meeting in Potsdam, where far-right activists and figures linked to Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland discussed plans for the forced departure of millions. Those plans included German citizens of foreign descent deemed insufficiently assimilated, according to Guardian reporting. The AfD later incorporated the term into its 2025 election programme. Its stated formulation focused on foreigners legally required to leave, unlike Sellner’s broader proposals.
Sellner rejects the description of remigration as ethnic cleansing. He says his demands do not involve arbitrary killings or expelling people from their homes because of their ethnic origin. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has described the concept as synonymous with ethnic cleansing. In parliament, AfD co-chair Alice Weidel called for the immediate deportation of one million foreign asylum seekers.
Die Linke and the SPD have called for the institute to be banned in Germany. The Greens have also sought a ban. Marcel Emmerich, the party’s parliamentary spokesperson for domestic policy, told Correctiv in September that Sellner’s proposals threatened the foundations of democracy. The Potsdam meeting sharpened scrutiny of the difference between ordinary deportation policy and broader remigration proposals. The AfD rejected comparisons with the meeting, saying its position concerned failed asylum claims and irregular migration, while also covering criminals. It supports voluntary returns by legal migrants, Guardian reporting said.
Sellner says his organisation has been barred from more than 130 bank branches in Germany and five other countries: France, Poland, Lithuania, Austria and Hungary. He also says he was able to open a bank account during his October visit to Spain. In Germany, his book proposes limiting new migration to 20,000 people a year.
