Critical members will set fire to VVD party leaders today during the Apeldoorn congress on issues such as asylum and migration. Some of them will critically question party leader and Prime Minister Mark Rutte about his promise to limit the influx of asylum seekers, they said in a letter.
That influx threatens to “explode,” critical members warn. In a letter to the main board of the VVD, they speak of a “catastrophe of unprecedented scale” which is already underway. According to them, nothing has been done so far with the motions on asylum and migration that were adopted at the previous VVD congress in November. The board shelved any new motions on this matter for today’s convention during last week’s internal subsessions.
Yesterday, Rutte said in his weekly press conference that his personal pledge to reduce the flow of asylum seekers still stands. You believe that the necessary steps have already been taken, especially at the international level. The cabinet is still discussing further measures to limit the number of new migrants, including asylum seekers.
The proposed distribution law is particularly sensitive within the party. Municipalities will have to deal with far more asylum seekers than previously proposed, the authors of the letter fear. And this threatens to disrupt local government. The State Secretary for Asylum Affairs of the VVD, Eric van der Burg, aims with the law at a better distribution in all municipalities, now that many municipalities do not cooperate voluntarily in the reception of asylum seekers. The big fear is that by the end of the year, just like last year, asylum seekers will again have to sleep outdoors at the Ter Apel claim centre.
The coalition grumbles
The distribution law is also a thorny issue within the governing coalition. Due to the quarreling within the coalition, the draft of the law was not sent to the House of Representatives, which should have happened at the latest last Wednesday. This year, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) expects more than 70,000 asylum applications, triple what the service claims to have been set up.
For the VVD, the coercive aspect of the municipalities is a particularly thorny topic within the law, but ‘what will still play a role is also the VVD congress in early June’, thinks Akkerman. The law was actually supposed to be introduced this year, but Van der Burg has already moved the date to early 2024. Before that, the law needs to be approved by both chambers.
Source: BNR
Fernando Dowling is an author and political journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. He has a deep understanding of the political landscape and a passion for analyzing the latest political trends and news.
