Dutch government seeks opt-out from EU asylum rules

The Netherlands announced Wednesday that it had requested from Brussels an opt-out from the European Union’s rules on asylum, days after the coalition government unveiled the country’s toughest-ever immigration policy.

“I have just informed the European Commission that I want a migration ‘opt-out’ on migration matters in Europe for the Netherlands,” Asylum and Migration Minister Marjolein Faber posted on X.

“We have to handle our own asylum policy once more!” said Faber, a member of the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) led by Geert Wilders.

Denmark has already managed to negotiate an agreement to keep it outside the EU’s common asylum policy.

The Dutch coalition government, which took power in July, has been promising this move for several months, but Wilders himself told AFP in May that getting such an opt-out could take years.

Some experts have also expressed reservations.

“A Dutch opt-out can only be realized by amending the treaty,” the Dutch Advisory Council on Migration said, pointing out that all 27 EU member states had to agree to the move.

“This is not very likely because the number of asylum seekers must then be distributed among fewer other member states,” council members Mark Klaassen and Laura Kok wrote on its website.

“Not every member state will be enthusiastic about this,” they said.

– ‘Asylum crisis’ –

Prime Minister Dick Schoof unveiled the country’s new immigration policy on Friday, which he said was in response to an “asylum crisis”.

“We cannot continue to bear the large influx of migrants into our country,” he said.

King Willem-Alexander, in his speech setting out the government’s priorities at the opening of parliament on Tuesday, described it as a “faster, stricter and more modest” asylum.

Cracks are already emerging in the coalition, which includes Wilders’s PVV, the farmers’ party BBB, the right-wing liberal VVD and the anti-corruption NSC.

NSC acting parliamentary leader Nicolien van Vroonhoven said Monday that her party would vote for tough immigration measures only if the Council of State advisory body approved it.

That sparked a furious reaction from Wilders, who posted on X: “The Netherlands has a huge asylum crisis and it will not be solved by running away in advance and threatening to vote no.”

Wilders was the surprise winner of elections in November but gave up his prime minister ambitions after at least one coalition party threatened to quit the talks.