Rabia Mayet | rabiamayet@radioislam.co.za

17 September 2024

3-minute read

The newly elected nationalist government in the Netherlands is moving to declare an asylum crisis invoking emergency powers to limit asylum seekers. Gordon Daroche, a journalist at The Guardian, stated that this controversial decision stems from the elections in November where asylum laws were the dominant topic in election campaigns. Parties who promised a clamp down on migration and implementation of much stricter rules for asylum seekers did very well in the elections, with government promising to introduce the “strictest asylum policy ever”.

The move, however, raises concerns about legality, migration and broader EU migration policies. The four key elements that will result from this declaration are:

1. To put a complete freeze on new asylum applications – for people already in the Netherlands waiting for their applications to be processed, this will mean that the procedure will come to an immediate halt,
2. To limit family reunions so that there will be fewer opportunities for asylum seekers already in the country to bring their family members over to join them,
3. To make conditions in asylum seeker centers much sparser in order to put off people from coming to the country, and
4. To introduce a 2-tier asylum system where asylum seekers who have a fear of persecution for personal reasons will be treated differently from those fleeing places where there is conflict and disruption, but don’t have direct personal reason to fear their government.

There are three stages to the legal framework. The first in to invoke emergency powers which will allow the government to bring in these restrictions without having to go through parliament; secondly to pass an “asylum crisis law” to restrict migration further; and finally to go to Brussels to opt out of EU rules and quotas so that the Netherlands are not bound by these laws.

According to Daroche, the country has not “got to grips with the asylum situation” and there is a “bottleneck” in the system where asylum seekers coming into the country are not managed: there isn’t enough housing and not enough facilities in the country for more people. The economic aspect of wanting to bring migration down is that the country will save a billion euros by reducing migration and this in turn will have a knock-on effect on and housing, health care and education.

Although there is likely to be a pushback, there is a definite shift to the Right and there is a possibility that government will make a start in implementation, even though the Highest administration has to first rule on whether the move is legally viable or not.

Listen to the full interview on Sabahul Muslim with Ml Sulaimaan Ravat.