The prime minister of the Netherlands revealed the country’s strictest asylum policy yet, noting that Amsterdam would seek an opt-out from the common European Union asylum policy next week.
A four-party coalition dominated by far-right MP Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party wants to declare an “asylum crisis” to curb the influx of migrants through a set of tough rules, including border controls.
“We cannot continue to bear the large influx of migrants into our country,” Schoof told journalists at a news conference in The Hague.
“People are experiencing an asylum crisis,” the prime minister said at the presentation of the government’s plans for the next three years.
“That is why we will soon introduce an emergency measure consisting of multiple procedures to make migration and asylum stricter,” he said.
“We will focus on the rapid departure of those who cannot stay and an accelerated procedure for asylum applications that have no chance of success,” added Schoof.
The new Dutch government, sworn in earlier this year after last November’s election, has vowed to take a hardline stance on stopping asylum seekers and irregular migrants from entering the Netherlands.
But legal experts and even Wilders himself have admitted that an opt-out of the EU asylum system could still take years.
“We will try to get a so-called opt-out for asylum, as the Danish have. That might take years if it is successful anyway,” Wilders told AFP in May.
Denmark negotiated a deal to exclude the country from being bound by common EU asylum policies and the new Dutch government wants to do the same.
Dutch migration experts said getting the EU to agree to an opt-out on asylum would be a tough ask.
“A Dutch opt-out can only be realized by amending the treaty,” the Dutch Advisory Council on Migration said, pointing out that all 27 EU member states had to agree to the move.
“This is not very likely because the number of asylum seekers must then be distributed among fewer other member states,” council members Mark Klaassen and Laura Kok wrote on its website.
“Not every member state will be enthusiastic about this,” they said.
Other plans revealed Friday included tackling the massive housing shortages as well as moves to deal with the Netherlands’ high levels of nitrogen output.
Schoof also mooted scaled-up oil and gas drilling in the North Sea as well as building two new nuclear reactors.
