The largest government party VVD is increasing the pressure on the cabinet: the long-awaited plan on migration must be ready by Friday at the latest. Liberals think it has gone on long enough.
The VVD is losing patience with the club of ministers who have been discussing ways to get a grip on asylum and labor migration for months. The House of Representatives will go into recess after this week. The cabinet will continue working for another week, but the VVD has recently issued a signal that the cabinet will no longer be granted any extra week.
There is no reason to postpone the D-day for another week for the migration issue, it sounds. If they haven’t worked it out after all these months, an extra week won’t work either. Last month, VVD party leader Sophie Hermans already said that the VVD ministers were not allowed to go on holiday before a migration plan was drawn up.
The government has been struggling with migration for some time. Last year, more asylum seekers came to our country than expected, causing a reception crisis, and many labor migrants have been coming to the Netherlands from Eastern Europe, for example, for years.
Inflow
The four coalition parties all think differently about migration. For example, VVD and CDA see the influx of asylum seekers as a problem, while D66 and ChristenUnie see no problem in this. ChristenUnie wants to tackle labor migration, while D66 does not rule out the need for more workers from abroad.
On the table is a list of ‘legally feasible and affordable’ measures, which have already been drawn up by officials. That asylum seekers who are allowed to stay in our country will no longer automatically receive a permanent residence permit after five years, for example, but also a cutback in legal aid for asylum seekers and measures against ‘stacked’ family reunification. Asylum seekers who have come to our country through family reunification also try to bring their own families to the Netherlands. The Immigration Service IND has been investigating this since last year.
But no decisions have yet been made about that official list. The four parties are in ‘complete disagreement’ about how to solve the migration issue, according to a coalition source.
For example, the CDA would like a distinction to be made from now on between asylum seekers who have little chance of obtaining residence status and asylum seekers who probably do deserve protection. The ChristenUnie would be firmly against such a two-status system, D66 previously called it ‘impracticable’. In the past, this policy led to endless litigation, as the IND also recalled.
However, the talks would be held ‘in a good atmosphere’. “I prefer that they slam the doors and that there is a plan,” says one person involved. “Right now there is not enough progress.”
Deliberate every day
According to sources in The Hague, ‘a lot still needs to be done’ in the coming days. It is no coincidence that special migration meetings are planned almost every day this week, led by Minister Dilan Yesilgöz (Justice and Security, VVD). “It is also the aim of the cabinet to come up with a plan this week,” says an insider.
That plan is then not first submitted to the coalition parties for approval. They would already be updated by their party members who are conducting the migration consultations.
Sources within the VVD do not want to say what consequences they attach if the cabinet does not meet the deadline. That depends on the situation, ‘whether it is still very far apart or whether further research is needed on one point’. But: ‘all options are on the table’, so also that the liberals leave the coalition.
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