In the coalition agreement, the new cabinet takes a clearly milder tone on migration than the Rutte III cabinet. Migration must be ‘structured’, the new cabinet wants to get ‘more grip’ on it. In order to achieve this, it will investigate whether it can work with a „guide number” to German model. This means that it is checked in advance how many migrants are allowed to enter the Netherlands each year. At the same time, the government also wants to improve legal migration.
Migration is a subject on which the ideas of the four parties differ widely. The VVD and the CDA are stricter, D66 and the ChristenUnie argue for a more generous reception policy. “Getting a grip” is a term that has often been used. None of the parties mentions numbers in their election manifestos, although the ChristenUnie wrote that it wanted “no limiting quota”. CDA member Hugo de Jonge said in an interview last year that he thought 80,000 migrants a year was too much.
As in the previous cabinet term, the cabinet will focus on agreements with third countries ‘to manage migratory flows and achieve returns’. The idea is that other countries will take back their own inhabitants if they have exhausted all legal remedies in the Netherlands, or that they receive migrants who want to go to Europe (reception in the region).
What used to be called ‘migration deals’ is called ‘agreements with third countries’ in the coalition agreement. It is a way of banning migrants before entering European territory, and of checking whether they are entitled to asylum in Europe. The VVD wanted to make migration agreements a hard condition for receiving development aid or access to the European market. An intermediate form has been found in this agreement.
In exchange, the new cabinet wants to pay or make agreements, for example in the field of trade or by temporarily allowing legal labor migration. The cabinet also attaches a means of pressure to this: if countries do not want to cooperate, the Netherlands can refuse visas for, for example, labor migration.
In order to get the asylum chain in order in its own country, the new cabinet invests an extra 200 million euros annually in the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) and in the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA). Both organizations are struggling with serious shortages. For example, there is now such a great lack of reception places for asylum seekers that people spend long periods of time in emergency facilities, even though they are not suitable for this. Asylum procedures must be faster and more careful. And those who are allowed to stay must be able to start integrating more quickly.
The new cabinet sees labor and knowledge migration from outside the EU as ‘desperately needed’ for various companies and sectors. There must be ‘more structure’ in labor migration and abuses must be combated.
The number of refugees that the Netherlands wants to resettle through the United Nations rises from 500 to 900. This is a clear advantage for the VVD, the strictest of the four parties in the field of migration. D66 and the ChristenUnie wrote in their election program that they wanted to include 5,000 people annually.
To improve the return of asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies, the government wants to tighten up the reporting obligation and offer asylum seekers’ centers education in the language of origin. The National Aliens Facility (LVV), which was carried out as a pilot in five cities in recent years, is being expanded nationally. The LVVs are intended to assist asylum seekers who have exhausted their legal remedies in returning to their country of origin.
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