When Minister Faber appears, the cars are suddenly checked in droves

The welcome for motorists who cross the border from Belgium via the A2 at Eijsden is the warmest. Three consecutive signs help orient the entrance. The first marks the beginning of the Netherlands. The second one has the text “The Limburgers welcome you”. The third is a tourist recommendation: above the indication South Limburg you can see a half-timbered house and a picturesque landscape.

This Monday morning the welcome is not merely friendly. December 9, 2024 has been on the agenda for some time as the date on which the Netherlands will start additional border controls. And this place has been chosen for such a check. A selection of vehicles from the south are led from the road by moving military police to the Platiel gas station/parking lot, where waiting colleagues look over papers, cars and occupants.

Four queues have been set out with pawns, but for nine that is a considerable exaggeration. At that time, the military police only checks a few cars at a time. That could be a van with ceiling constructors or a very expensive Mercedes. The number plates show how international the passing traffic is in 2024: the cars come from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, France, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia.

Press moment Faber

While it is slowly becoming light, we are also waiting for Minister Marjolein Faber (Asylum and Migration, PVV), who wants to take her press moment here. Several dozen journalists are already waiting behind cones for her arrival.

A young Frenchman in a Renault Clio who is being led past border guards opens a window from the back seat, visibly surprised and smiling broadly. “Is this for TV?”

It is the only car that has to stay in the parking lot a little longer. Two of the three passengers have no papers with them. The military police will take the driver to one of the three mobile offices that are here for the occasion.

In the meantime, all trucks can drive by without any checks. A single driver honks triumphantly as he passes.

The minister arrives around a quarter to nine by official car. She stays for a while to discuss some matters with some officials. The increasing rain does not really invite you to go out. When Faber finally comes out, she walks to one of the mobile offices, taking shelter under an umbrella.

Around 9.20 am the minister comes outside for conversations with the military police who do their work in the drizzly weather. Now that all the cameras are on, many more cars are suddenly stopped and short traffic jams form. The minister stands at the Clio for a while and then makes her rounds to the assembled journalists.

“This is not symbolic politics,” Faber swears. “This is one of the measures to limit the out-of-control asylum influx. It also helps to do something about human trafficking and other cross-border crime. People have been given more powers and can carry out longer and more intensive inspections in certain places.” Faber praises the stopped French car as a success: “The first people without papers have already been removed.”

The most famous asylum seeker

While the military police are standing along the highway in Eijsden with about 25 people this morning, everything is as usual at the vast majority of the 840 Dutch border crossings between the Netherlands and its neighboring countries Belgium and Germany. The border crossing is located two or three hundred meters east of the A2. On Sunday morning, November 10, 1918, at the end of the First World War, the most famous asylum seeker in Dutch history, the German Emperor Wilhelm II, reported there. At the time, he found a number of military police officers there. 106 years later, their office is long gone and there is no one there. The same applies to the other 325 border crossings that Limburg has to offer.

In total, there are currently no more than fifty military police available for the additional border controls throughout the country. “But you have to start somewhere,” says Faber. She also praises the working methods of the military police. Based on ‘collected information and analyses’, they can deploy their limited capacity at the most promising places and times. “During checks they have their indicators to choose which vehicles they check.”

The spokespersons for the military police do not say what those indicators are. They do not want to go further than the umbrella term “suspicious behavior”. “We shouldn’t make people who are planning something wiser either.”

Just after 10.15 am, Minister Faber gets back into her official car. The three young Frenchmen in the Clio were allowed to continue driving shortly before. Later in the day the inspection is also over.

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