Cape Verde: A Glimpse into Europe’s Future

Praia, in March 2025

There is a striking reversal unfolding between Europe and Cape Verde.
Once, Cape Verdeans looked to Europe to imagine their future. Today, we can look to Cape Verde to imagine ours.

Here in Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, I met a mother living with her two youngest children. Her three older ones had already left—one in France, two in Portugal. The money they send home has transformed the family house, which was renovated in a matter of months. Migration is no longer a dream; it is a system, a strategy, a lifeline.

I lived in Cape Verde in the 1980s for almost three years. I started when the country had no national television, and of course, no mobile phones, no internet. Cars were rare, and business was mostly local. What was not local, even then, was migration. People left to build lives abroad, hoping to return with experience, savings, and dignity.

Today, Cape Verde is almost unrecognizable.
Its leaders are educated in Europe, the U.S., or in Cape Verde’s own universities. They navigate transnational networks stretching from Lisbon and Paris to Boston and London. But this transformation is not limited to elites. Construction workers, craftsmen, cooks, caregivers, small business owners—many have built livelihoods abroad, earned respect, and gained skills that travel back home in powerful ways.

Cape Verdeans are fully integrated into the interconnected global society. They move, work, learn, and connect across borders with remarkable ease.

And Europe?
For all its historical advantages, it is still coming to terms with this reality.

Europe imagines itself as the center of global flows—but it is increasingly on the receiving end of a world shaped by mobility, migration, diaspora, and transnational networks. Cape Verde, in its small scale and agility, shows what deep global integration looks like.

The question is no longer whether Cape Verde will catch up with Europe.
It is whether Europe will catch up with the world Cape Verdeans already inhabit.

When will we realise that Europe’s future has not been insular for some time now, but global?
And when will we finally learn to deal with this reality in such a way that we can once again look to the Europe’s future with excitement?

#CapeVerde #InterconnecdGlobal Society #migration #mobility