“Can I finish the conversation?” Ruben Brekelmans asks when his story is shouted from the audience. Brekelmans spoke on asylum in the House of Representatives on behalf of the VVD. On Tuesday evening he stands in front of a room of critical VVD members in Driebergen and defends the new asylum measures of the cabinet. “Even if you say that you do not have such a problem with the fact that people have to sleep outside in Ter Apel, it is also unacceptable from a nuisance aspect.” There is a cry again. Criticism of forcing municipalities to receive asylum seekers. “Let me finish the conversation”, says Brekelmans again.
On Friday, the cabinet introduced new asylum measures to limit the influx of asylum seekers in order to relieve the overcrowded asylum reception facilities. For example, status holders may only allow their family to come to the Netherlands for the time being if they have a home. And the Netherlands will temporarily not comply with the Turkey deal, which divides asylum seekers across the EU. Last week there was criticism from the supporters of the ChristenUnie and D66 about the new asylum plan. And on Tuesday, a group of CDA members also stirred. The measures would be too strict.
At the VVD meeting on asylum on Tuesday evening in Driebergen, a different sound was heard: the party leadership of the VVD must do more to limit the influx of asylum seekers. The meeting had already been scheduled before the summer recess in The Hague. At the VVD congress in June, the board had adopted a motion from Paul Slettenhaar, alderman in Castricum, who called for the meeting to be held to discuss the “gigantic influx of asylum seekers to the Netherlands”. It was the same meeting where a motion was tabled calling for changes to the nitrogen policy – which had always been fervently defended by VVD minister Christianne van der Wal (Nature and Nitrogen). The motion sparked a stir within and outside the party.
On Tuesday evening, there was again a discussion in the VVD, where that normally rarely happens. In addition to Brekelmans, Eric van der Burg, State Secretary for Asylum and Migration, is also in front of the room. There are about a hundred people, a considerable number with their arms folded on their chests. About four times as many VVD members watch online via Zoom. There is a constant stream of chat messages, most of them critical. “He goes right back to it.” “Asylum stop necessary.”
There are also members who think along. In the room, a female VVD member from Amstelveen proposes to receive asylum seekers on Rottumerplaat, an uninhabited Dutch Wadden Island. An elderly man comes up with the idea of encouraging retirees to move abroad. Brekelmans thinks this is “not liberal, but creative”.
Also read: Asylum agreement: municipalities must place 20,000 status holders this autumn
Close borders
Several questions are about forcing municipalities to receive asylum seekers. Is the VVD for or against? Earlier this month, Van der Burg announced that 300 asylum seekers will be accommodated in and near a hotel in Tubbergen in Overijssel. The municipality was, in its own words, “unpleasantly surprised”. Brekelmans said in the media that he no longer wants municipalities to be ‘passed over’ by the government, as he believes happened in Tubbergen. He repeats that during the meeting. At the same time, Van der Burg is working on a bill that can force municipalities to receive asylum seekers.
“So you put people on the wrong track if you say you don’t want coercion à la Tubbergen,” says Slettenhaar, the alderman from Castricum, to Brekelmans. Brekelmans says he understands the ‘concerns and questions’. “But we haven’t committed to anything yet.”
What ‘we’ have committed to are the EU treaties, according to Brekelmans. That is why, according to him, an asylum ban is not possible in the short term, he says to a man in the hall who has just read out part of the VVD election program. This includes the proposal to close the Dutch borders to migrants in the event of a new migration crisis. The room claps after the man quotes Pim Fortuyn: “We can go mop, but not with the tap open.” Brekelmans says that he also has the wish for an asylum stop, but “we stand for the rule of law”.
Van der Burg had already said at the beginning of the evening that as a member of the cabinet he would take no other position than the cabinet. He always takes a long time to explain and defend his policies. That causes irritation in the room. Brekelmans seems to have more room for maneuver, but for now he wants to stick to the current plan. “If we are still in a crisis situation in a few weeks or months, we will have to look again.”
“Responsibility sometimes just means ‘ouch’”, says Van der Burg in good spirits. A VVD member has a different conclusion in the chat on Zoom. “They drank a glass and took a pee and everything stayed as it was.”