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Undated photo of children playing outside at an residential complex for asylum seekers in the Netherlands - Credit: COA /Inge van Mill - License: All Rights Reserved
The new right-wing coalition plans to reform the entire asylum and migration system and turn it into “the strictest admission regime for asylum and the most comprehensive package for control over migration ever.” The hotly contested asylum distribution law will be scrapped, and the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB will sharply limit family reunification for refugees, among other things.
In a press conference explaining their coalition agreement, PVV leader Geert Wilders said that many things will change, referring to "the strictest asylum policy ever" and the scrapping of the distribution law. The new government will also introduce border controls, he said. NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt said that more control over migration is necessary to leave room for people who really need asylum.
The asylum distribution law enabled the government to force municipalities to take in asylum seekers. The existing asylum shelters are overflowing and requests to voluntarily arrange more shelter had little effect. The Tweede Kamer and Eerste Kamer both adopted State Secretary Eric van der Burg’s distribution law after a magnitude of amendments, compromises, and negotiations.
Van der Burg is devastated that all of that effort and exhaustion has come to nothing, he told NOS after his faction, the VVD, agreed to the coalition agreement. He approved the agreement with a very heavy heart, the visibly emotional man said. “You have days that are better and days that are less. You know I usually smile and that didn’t happen tonight,” he said, confirming that the matter brought him to tears. He stressed that he would stay in the VVD because he has been a VVD member for 40 years and is “liberal down to my fibers.”
The new coalition wants to implement a temporary Asylum Crisis Act “with crisis measures to combat the acute influx and reception of asylum seekers for the coming period.” Declaring something a “crisis” enables the government to take more far-reaching measures. For a period of up to two years, asylum seekers will be forced to register and the handling of their asylum application will be suspended. Their reception will be limited and simplified during the suspension.
The parties are scrapping the indefinite asylum permit and adjusting the temporary residence permit. Asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies will be “deported as much as possible, including forcibly.” Refugees—asylum seekers whose application was granted—will no longer get priority for social housing.
The right-wing parties are scrapping automatic family reunification. The number of people qualifying for family reunification—joining a family member granted asylum in the Netherlands—will be “sharply limited,” the coalition agreement states. The parties also plan to limit legal assistance to asylum seekers as much as possible.
They’ll also ask the European Commission to add an opt-out clause for the Netherlands in the European asylum and migration policy. The new coalition plans to team up with “like-minded and neighboring countries” to let fewer asylum seekers in through “the structural intensification of mobile security surveillance.”
The PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB expect that decreasing the number of asylum seekers seeking safety in the Netherlands will ultimately reduce expenditure by 1 billion euros.
Other types of migration
The right-wing government will also set additional requirements for expats from outside the EU and harshly tackle “rogue employment arrangements.”
They want to lower the number of international students by limiting how many non-EU students higher education institutions can enroll in bachelor's programs, except for studies where there are labor market shortages. More courses must be in Dutch and non-EU students will face higher tuition fees and more restrictions for obtaining a basic study grant.
The parties also want additional and mandatory integration requirements. The standard period for naturalization will increase from five to ten years, and immigrants who want Dutch nationality must “renounce their other nationality where possible.”
“The basic principle is that you are one of us and subscribe to Dutch values,” the agreement states. Immigrants must learn about the Holocaust and, there will be stricter language requirements. The parties will also regulate amplified calls to prayer, something typical of Islam, and tackle “foreign undesirable influence such as through weekend schools.”
