By Bert Brussen, TPO – Despite Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s (VVD) promise in November to reduce the number of new asylum seekers in the Netherlands, no decrease has been observed in the past six months, according to an analysis of the most recent figures by RTL Nieuws.
Rutte hadpromised during the VVD congress to “substantially reduce” the influx of migrants, which led to the adoption of the “dwanget” by the VVD faction and the party congress.
However, data from the Ministry of Justice & Security show that the influx remained the same as the same months in the previous year.
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Despite various consultations in The Hague and Brussels, this has not yet yielded anything for the asylum influx. This while there are still political tensions around migration in the cabinet. Parties such as VVD and CDA advocate stricter migration policy, D66 and ChristenUnie are opposed to it.
Although there is hope for European agreements, it is still unclear whether this is feasible. So for now, the Netherlands seems to be dealing with yet another asylum crisis and Rutte with a headache file that is going to hurt more rather than less.
