The hard-line Dutch government today announced a package of unprecedented migration control measures, including renewed border checks, to curb the influx, the Associated Press reported. announced BTA.
Thus, the Netherlands becomes another European country that takes a tougher stance on migration in the context of the growing sentiment in most countries on the continent against foreigners coming to them, AP points out.
Measures to be put forward for parliamentary approval include limiting the number of family members who can accompany a person granted asylum in the Netherlands, reducing the length of temporary residence and declaring certain territories of civil war-torn Syria for safe. Thus, the Dutch authorities will have the right to reject asylum applications from people from the relevant Syrian regions.
Syrians are the most numerous of the migrants arriving in the Netherlands. The Dutch government's decision comes a week after European Union leaders considered "new ways" to deal with migration. "We want to make the Netherlands as unappetizing as possible," said Dutch Migration Minister Mariolein Faber, who represents nationalist Geert Wilders' Freedom Party, whose group in parliament is the largest.
"Today is a wonderful day," said Villeres in turn, hailing the measures as historic and calling them "the strictest refugee policy in history".
The Dutch cabinet approved the package of measures after final talks in the early hours of today between Wilders and other party leaders to reach a compromise on the introduction of the changes. For weeks, there has been debate centered on whether to apply crisis legislation to the migration measures, which can be passed without a parliamentary vote, or fast-track legislation that requires the approval of lawmakers, the AP said.
Furthermore, the government wants to repeal the law that obliges municipalities to accommodate migrants. The Association of Dutch Municipalities said the measures would "create chaos". According to her, "the tasks must be fairly distributed among the municipalities.
Netherlands Prime Minister Dick Schoof said the moves were aimed at "reducing the inflow of migrants, speeding up their outflow, returning those who do not reside legally and restoring order to the chain of obtaining the right to asylum. thereby easing the strain on society" in the Netherlands. The Dutch Refugee Council has said about the government's new migration plan, which was leaked earlier this week, that it will not solve the country's internal problems.
The four-party coalition government formed after Wilders' election victory last year took office in July promising to control migration, but has since become embroiled in controversy over how to implement the changes more quickly, the Associated Press noted. Over the past 12 months, 51,000 people have applied for asylum in the Netherlands, which has a population of 18 million, according to data from the country's immigration and naturalization office, the AP said. The number of migrants who arrived last month was 4,026, against 4,683 in September last year.