European ministers have told the Dutch government its plan to opt out of European Union migration rules is “not a good idea” and insisted on “unity,” despite offering the Netherlands no solutions to its immigration woes.
At a contentious meeting in Luxembourg, EU asylum ministers debated the proposal put forward by Dutch asylum and migration minister Marjolein Faber. Despite increasing pressure within the Netherlands to reduce migration levels, Faber’s proposal faced strong opposition from ministers across Europe.
German Minister Nancy Faeser dismissed the opt-out as “not a good idea,” while European Commissioner Ylva Johansson told the Dutch their idea would require a treaty amendment. “It is not possible according to the EU treaty and I have said that to the Netherlands as well,” she said.
At the heart of Faber’s proposal is a problem shared by many EU countries: the difficulty in returning rejected asylum seekers. The EU’s newly established migration pact seeks to speed up the asylum process and detain asylum seekers from relatively safe countries, but it does little to address the complex obstacles involved in repatriating rejected migrants.
This is particularly the case for the Netherlands, where mass immigration is putting strain on public services.
Also complicating matters is the lack of cooperation from countries of origin. Migrants often arrive without identification documents, making it difficult to establish their nationality. Without this confirmation, countries of origin can refuse to accept returnees, effectively leaving EU countries like the Netherlands in a legal and logistical limbo.
As migration expert Arjen Leerkes told Dutch broadcaster NOS: “If the nationality of a migrant is unknown and countries also do not report that it is their citizen, how can you prove that they are not cooperating?”
Despite Faber’s push for “return hubs” at the EU’s external borders to hold rejected asylum seekers until they can be sent back, most EU ministers prefer to call for “unity” rather than flexibility.
Ministers from Greece and Sweden called for collective action, with Greek minister Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos claiming a “patchwork” of migration policies would be a bad idea. Swedish justice minister Gunnar Strömmer even claimed the European migration pact “is efficient and works like it is intended,” adding, “We cannot now start looking for special solutions for individual countries.”
However, critics say that centralised policies ignore the reality of the return problem faced by individual countries. The Netherlands, alongside Hungary, which has also signalled interest in an opt-out, contends that without a viable return mechanism, the EU’s migration framework does not work.
