Fact check: can we buy off migration, as BBB claims? | Fact check

The short answer to the first question is: yes, this is possible. A provisional plan from the European Commission, which is still being discussed, will allow a European member state to do what the BBB proposes in its program within the new arrangement. According to schedule, negotiations should be completed in February 2024.

How that would work out for the Dutch situation: according to figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics, 46,460 asylum seekers entered the country in 2022. This means, if we stick to the BBB’s plan of a maximum of 15,000 residence permits, that the shelter for 31,460 people will have to be bought off. Assuming that the same number of asylum seekers come to the Netherlands in the coming years, this would cost 629,200,000 million euros annually. For comparison: last year the price tag for the reception of asylum seekers in the Netherlands was around 1.5 billion euros.

As for the costs, the question of whether other countries would accept receiving refugees for a fee is still open. “Hungary probably doesn’t want this. Poland now has a new government, so we have to wait and see,” says Marlou Schrover, professor of Economic and Social History, with a special interest in migration and diversity. She is affiliated with Leiden University.

“It is certain that Italy already has major problems with the reception of refugees and these problems will not decrease as a result. This does not eliminate the cause of migration, so it is very questionable whether this will work. People don’t let themselves be stopped. Rather, the problem is shifted.”

Italy recently launched a plan together with Albania to receive asylum seekers in the latter country. The government of Italian Prime Minister Meloni is trying to fulfill an election promise by allowing fewer migrants into Italy.

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The question is whether buying off migrants will lead to fewer refugees coming to the Netherlands, an important goal of the BBB. Imposing restrictions on migration yields little, the professor knows. “Certainly considering the figures of the last decades. An important historical rule of thumb that we can use is that imposing restrictions sometimes reduces legal migration, but not migration as a whole. There is therefore no reason to assume that things would be different as a result of this measure.”

She compares the current situation with that during the war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. “Mostly families came from there, just like now from Ukraine. As long as it is unsafe somewhere, people will continue to come. Such an arrangement does not change that, people do not allow themselves to be guided.”

A good illustration of that statement is the fact that once people are here, they usually prefer to stay here. “Once in the Netherlands, about seventy percent remain ‘stayed’, a third ultimately goes back to the country where they once came from,” Schrover says.

That is not surprising, especially in the case of families with children who are rooted in schools and sports clubs, she explains. “If you then have to make the trade-off between an unsafe environment for your children and a society in which they enjoy themselves, the choice for a parent is quickly made.”

Schrover therefore remains skeptical about the chances of success. “You have to remove the causes for fleeing, that is the real solution. Because as long as there is a reason to flee, people flee.”

Henk Vermeer, candidate Member of Parliament in the upcoming elections and co-founder of the BBB party, explains that the plan to pay other countries for shelter is mainly there to work towards. “Until there is agreement in Europe, we will rely on the Dublin agreement. We will assume that arrangement as soon as the new migration deal is finalized.”

BBB’s plan is possible, but it depends on the willingness of other countries to accept refugees for a fee. The latter is by no means certain.

This fact check was carried out in the context of the joint fact check marathon of AD, Nieuwscheckers and Pointer (KRO-NCRV) in the run-up to the House of Representatives elections on November 22, 2023. View all fact checks here.