International

Following the conference of the Christian Democrats (CDA) it does indeed appear that there will be a government of the two centre-right parties, VVD and CDA, tolerated by the far right PVV. The agreement which enabled this toleration states that the new government will ensure that all European laws on immigration and asylum are made more restrictive. In my view this is a promise which cannot be kept, at least not within the government's maximum term of four years. In any case, these European laws are not nearly so lenient as these parties would have us believe.

European rights in relation to immigration and exile proceeded originally from the principle that apart from family members and refugees, the door for immigrants should be closed tight. This was later changed, because the member states wanted to have the right to admit better educated migrants. The SP has always been against this, on the grounds that we do not want to encourage a brain drain out of developing countries. Think of the doctors and nursing staff recruited from Africa, while African countries themselves suffer from a shortage of such people.

CDA, VVD and PVV have no intention of putting an end to the immigration of such highly educated workers, but do want to tighten up the rules on family reunification and on asylum. If they were successful in this, it would have little effect on the situation in the Netherlands, because the number of asylum seekers is in any case much lower than it was in the 1990s, and the number of people arriving to join their families has, following the introduction of stricter rules, fallen greatly. This is, therefore, primarily a symbolic line.

But it's already clear that the new government cannot achieve what it has promised in relation to this within four years, or within whatever shorter time they are in office. The European Commission is in favour not of tightening up the rules, but of clarifying them. If you want to make them more restrictive, you would need the support of a clear majority of the member states, and as things stand the member states are hopelessly divided. As far as asylum goes, there has as yet been no discussion of a number of Commission proposals, because reaching agreement on these would be too difficult. This is likely to go on for some time; moreover, you cannot successfully oppose a measure on your own, as there is no veto right in relation to this policy area. It doesn't augur well if the new Dutch government is promising all sorts of things in this way when it knows that they cannot be realised.