A majority of the VVD members at the party congress voted for the government’s so-called ‘distribution law’. With this law, the coalition wants to distribute asylum seekers evenly across the country and, if necessary, force municipalities to take in refugees. The measure was a sensitive issue within the VVD for a long time, but on Saturday at a party conference, 77 percent of the members present voted for the law. The support is a boost for State Secretary Eric van den Burg (Asylum, VVD).
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Van den Burg wanted to present the law much earlier in order to be able to contain the asylum reception crisis. However, the party’s Lower House faction did not want to support the plan for a long time. Van den Burg calls it “very nice” that a majority of the members will vote in favor on Saturday. Another motion calling for limiting the influx of asylum seekers was also supported. “We will be working on that in the near future.”
Party leader and Prime Minister Mark Rutte was the first to speak at the party meeting in the former Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam on Saturday morning. Earlier, Rutte already discussed asylum policy with the parliamentary party. On Saturday, he stated that the number of refugees to the Netherlands should be “substantially” reduced. The prime minister called it “a mistake” that too little attention has been paid to the rising number of asylum seekers. Without presenting concrete measures, Rutte promised to make “personal efforts” to limit the number of asylum applications.