Wopke Hoekstra is concerned; he fears things could get grim in our country. He expressed this in his speech at the CDA congress last weekend. Fortunately, he immediately dispelled his own oppression by sketching a hopeful scenario of a future in which we look after each other. A future in which everyone takes responsibility. “A country of less me and more we.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs wants to achieve this with concrete migration targets, among other things. More people are entering our country than we can handle and that is unsustainable, says Hoekstra. I continued to read his speech with great curiosity, which concrete migration objectives would our minister formulate? Would someone finally come up with a good idea? I read the text from bottom to top and back again, but alas, it turned out to be a milkshake talk. You know, one of those sugar-sweet bites that the audience can swallow without having to chew anything.
In Italy they can make the migration policy more concrete: three rescue ships are not allowed to dock there, on which almost a thousand boat refugees have been collected in recent weeks. After much haggling, one of the ships was allowed to dock temporarily this weekend so that Italian officials could make a selection; 144 vulnerable migrants were allowed to enter the country, 35 boat people were sent back to sea.
Things will eventually become so concrete by themselves if you keep putting a problem in front of you. Then you make the southern member states burst within the EU while pointing the finger at universal human rights, you are blackmailed by countries such as Morocco, Libya and Turkey, and the far right takes off as a smiling third with the election win.
In the meantime, there is no shortage of concrete figures and graphs. For example, CBS keeps track of everything: the migration balance this year stands at +188,500, not counting the last quarter. Most immigrants come from the former Soviet Union (102,200) and Europe (90,300), with the largest group being Ukrainian refugees. From Asia 63,700 people came this way, the continent of America supplied 23,700 and Africa 17,900.
We are very gifted in the Netherlands at preparing reports, so if you ask yourself these numbers: what does the arrival of so many people mean? Don’t worry, we’ve thought about it. For example, by the Scientific Council for Government Policy, which released a report in 2020 called Living together in diversity. It is probably somewhere in a department waiting for someone who likes concrete objectives to walk by. The piece is full of analyzes and recommendations for a proactive and structural policy on persistent population growth. In addition, the WRR provides insight into current migration motives and the way in which the role of municipalities should be fulfilled. In short, it is a useful report. But yes, choices have to be made. Which will not always be to your liking. We don’t like that very much in the Netherlands.
Well, we’re still doing better than Qatar, where they dump thousands of migrant workers into the cement mixer for a few shiny football stadiums without blinking an eyelid. Scandalous! Let’s keep getting excited about those kinds of countries, and not wonder what actually happens to all those hopeless migrants who disappear under the radar because we lack the backbone for concrete policy choices. ‘A land of less me and more we’; by that we mean only ourselves, right?